They want to do just enough to force the feds to act. Then they can put sympathetic figures out front to get arrested and show sliced up videos of the feds arresting what the media will claim is "peaceful protesting."
If you want to see peaceful protesting in Portland you can see it right now. The hoodies and helmets and fireworks are nowhere to be found. During daylight hours none of this stuff is going on. The goons will be out in about an hour and the idiocy will commence. They yell at the feds that this is a peaceful protest, why are you wearing riot gear, you are oppressors, etc. then someone throws fireworks or frozen water bottles or cans of food at the feds and it's wHy aRe tHeY DoInG ThIs tO Us?
You can bet good money the vast majority of the people involved in this violence are students on break or unemployed service workers. Before they were just lashing out at the man but now with feds involved they can redirect some anger towards orange man. This is the only sanctioned social outlet in town and that appeals to a lot of people. The large majority of people participating just stand around watching or filming with their phones, it's a minor few who are actually trying to cause harm. There's also something enticing about banding together and being a part of something, even if you're not really doing anything. If I was an early 20's super lib with nothing to do all summer I could certainly see going down there just to watch.
