I find this, reported by WGN television, disturbing on any number of grounds:
CHICAGO — Donald Trump’s campaign on Friday postponed a rally in Chicago amid fights between supporters and demonstrators, protests in the streets and concerns that the environment at the event was no longer safe.
The announcement, which came amid large protests both inside and outside the event at The University of Illinois, comes amid heightened concerns about violence at the GOP front-runner’s rallies and four days before Illinois holds its Republican primary.
Hundreds of demonstrators packed into an arena, breaking out into protest even before Trump had showed up. At least five sections in the arena were filled with protesters.
“Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”
Several fistfights between Trump supporters and protesters could be seen after the announcement, as a large contingent of Chicago police officers moved in to restore order.
I think that practically everybody is handling things very poorly. Mr. Trump’s reaction to protesters at his rallies is thuggish and has on occasion crossed over the line. Saying “I wish I could punch him in the face” is skating very close to the line. Saying “Hit him!” has crossed over it.
But there is no legitimate reason to go out with the specific intention of shutting someone else’s political rally down. If that becomes accepted practice, we’ll never have a political meeting let alone a political rally in this country ever again. Politics will end and only thuggery will remain.
I don’t think the police have covered themselves in glory, either. They should be preventing things from getting out of hand rather than stepping in once they have gotten out of hand which suggests they’re siding with the alleged protesters.
I wonder if the protesters realize that they are handing Trump pre-built campaign slogans.
My first reaction was why place this event at a college campus?
My sense when Trump came to Springfield was that these rallies are barely organized and a lot of what happens to pull these things off might simply be local volunteers. This was the place btw/ where some African-Americans who came to watch were escorted to a prominent place on the podium behind Trump, and then the lady started reading a book.
The protesters got played. PD is right: the campus location was a deliberate choice.
Police are denying they told Trump to cancel the event. It’s not surprising. Trump is playing to the cowardice of supporters desperate for the belief that they are under siege by elements not of their own making.
Personally, I think the image of a group of halfwit sucker-punch loving Trump supporters eager for war crimes and mass deportation getting their asses kicked by a bunch of students will end up doing more to stop the man than all of let’s-analyze-the-anger-of-rubes in the world. Especially when they start crying about the injustice of it all.
MM:
I’d agree… if the protesters hadn’t been so damned stupid. They were celebrating what they thought was a successful effort to shut down political speech. To a big segment of the country it looks like idiot college kids enforcing a speech code and disregarding the First Amendment.
Black Lives Matter has been very savvy until lately – I suspect it’s because Deray McKesson is off running for mayor of Baltimore. In this case they scored an own goal, helping Trump solidify his vote and pushing Trump’s three opponents right off the TV screen just 4 days out from the primaries that can end this race.
Trump the tactician beat them. But I suspect it shows a weakness at strategic thinking. In other words, what works for firing up the yahoos now may be a disadvantage later in the general. Trump operates on the assumption that people are sheep who can be manipulated ad infinitum. If he’s right then the American people will elect an authoritarian strong-man of no fixed principles.
I agree with some of what Michael says. Trump is certainly a savvy strategist. Most everything he says and does has some kind of intended outcome. After all, he’s a seasoned “deal-maker,” who makes said choices based on success and profit. In a way his style is the mirror image of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals — the cookbook on how to successfully play your opponents and win that was so “successfully” applied by Obama in his own election as well as administrative contests.
Michael–
I don’t think it’s a matter of Americans being sheep. Trump’s problem is basic demographics–his message is directly unacceptable to a coalition that has superior numbers.
He doesn’t believe this right now, but come June or July he will when the numbers are explained. I see him going in a direction that will take his mob factories out of rallies and into swing states. By the time October rolls around, there will be Trump Militias roaming around in Cleveland, looking for ‘illegals’ primed to commit voting fraud. It’s going to be a bloodbath, and the media will have few ideas about how to cover it except by falling back on both sides doing it.
“Trump operates on the assumption that people are sheep who can be manipulated ad infinitum.”
Hmmm, sheep, eh? Hope and change. Vote Dem because Republicans want the elderly to eat dog food, and to poison the water, and kill gays. Blacks should vote Dem because the Dems will fix all their problems, except letting Chicago cops shoot them dead, and treating them like paid, but reliably voting, pets.
Ad infinitum…….
Drew:
Ted Cruz’s pastor has explicitly called for killing gays. And the Republican governor of Michigan is in actual fact responsible for poisoning water. You should update your random Tourette’s blurts.
Dave- Unless you have real inside information, you have bought entirely into one side of the narrative. Given the history of protestors being attacked and harassed at other Trump rallies (including Trump supporters saying protestors should be killed), why do you assume that the protestors were starting the fights? Seems just as likely, if not more, that protestors were attacked by Trump supporters. Also, it appears the police thought they had it under control. They did not advise canceling. Suggests that Trump made a political calculation that he would get more out of canceling than going ahead.
So look at it from the other side, if you can even go somewhere and peacefully protest, what do have? Tyranny?
Steve
Let me also point out that the people currently explaining why being terrified of protest is great for Trump were the same who were quite confident Trump would never make it this far.
“Great news for Trump,” says local man who thought Trump would be finished after New Hampshire.
Because that’s what the published reports have said. Additionally, multiple outlets have reported that the “protesters” had announced their intention to disrupt the rallies. When you “protest” with the intent to disrupt, that’s already a problem IMO.
Intentionally disrupting someone else’s rally is not peacefully protesting.
Steve:
The whole thing was basically a trap set by Trump. The protesters walked into it. He’s been ramping up the anti-protest rhetoric, calling for a violent response. Then he books a college campus venue in Chicago. Protesters arrive, he doesn’t even bother to show up, lies openly about the police, and his jacked up crowd and the jacked up protesters go at it.
Had the protesters not been there on the usual campus lefty mission of shutting down free speech, they’d have a better case to make. But when you oppose the First Amendment and try – not to protest but to shout down a voice you dislike – you surrender the moral high ground. It validates Trump’s anti-PC rants, it helps Trump, and it disarms moderates who otherwise would clearly back the right of protest.
“PD is right: the campus location was a deliberate choice.”
That’s not what I meant. Based upon how the Trump event was planned and operated when they came to Springfield, I do not think there is a lot of planning and forethought.
Because that’s what the published reports have said.
Where have you read this? Because I’ve read no reports that have said who was starting the fights.
MM: The protesters went to the arena to disrupt and stop the rally:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-bernie-sanders-supporters-shut-down-donald-trump-rally-chicago
” By the time October rolls around, there will be Trump Militias roaming around in Cleveland, looking for ‘illegals’ primed to commit voting fraud. “
Talk about science fiction at it’s best….
“And the Republican governor of Michigan is in actual fact responsible for poisoning water. “
This has been a good tag line for progressives to use. However, the reasons behind this tragedy are far more complex, crossing over into failed responsibilities on the part of both state and local officials, including the state’s Department of Environment Quality. Criticism (and law suits) is being leveled at not only current state/local officials (most of whom are Democrats), but also at the fiscal problems and decisions made by those causing the depth and breath of poverty which precipitated the need to seek such cost-cutting measures in the first place. This includes all the awful fiscal policies responsible for halving Flint’s population from1960-70’s to today, along with a 16% unemployment rate, 42% living in poverty, a loss of 75% in it’s tax basis, and $1.1 billion in unfunded pension costs. It was the latter that seemed to truly cut into the vitality and promise of Flint. Hence, earlier near-sighted policies led to corrosive, crippling conditions generating the need for said cost-cutting solutions, having little to no oversight, compounded further by government officials sweeping ensuing health complaints under the rug for far to long. Basically, the Republican Governor’s role is more a political piece of an otherwise very convoluted history of governmental missteps producing Flint’s contaminated water scenario.
PD:
So protesting the speech of a politician equals starting a fight? Seriously?
MM:
Shouting down someone exercising their freedom of speech is not a legitimate exercise of freedom of speech and it is not a protest. It is disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. In Illinois that’s a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a $10,000 fine. A repeat of the offense is a Class A felony, punishable by jail time.
MM: steve is the one who interpreted Dave’s objection as starting a fight. The context is that some of these people went to a rally to shut it down, and they were either expecting and wishing a sock in the jaw, or were incredibly naive in the belief that all 10,000 Trump fans would quietly contain their disappointment that a bunch of vulgar punks had stopped the show.
All it takes is a few to escalate things, which is why the government establishes protest zones in the first place.
Ted Cruz’s pastor has explicitly called for killing gays.
As opposed to Barack Obama’s pastor preaching “God DAMN America”? I gues it’s okay as long as he was only damning and calling for the death of typical white people.
..
But what are people expecting? Trump’s opponents in the Republican Party are campaigning on the Never Trump Hash Tag of Doom. Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party & media are calling him Hitler. All of them are begging for people to kill Trump & his supporters. What else do you do with Nazis?
Predictably, today someone bumrushed Trump in Ohio: John Wilkes Boob, I believe it was. How long was it between the time they started throwing pies at Pym Fortuyn to his murder? Four months or so, is what some Dutchman told me today. I don’t think it will take that long here. George Soros is spending $150 million to buy the election, and that much moolah can get him a lot of crazed gunmen. Fortuyn’s murderer spent less than twelve years in prison. Trump’s killer probably will be immediately pardoned by Obama and be appointed to the Supreme Court to Hosannas from the Republican controlled Senate.
“. It is disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace.”
Then arrest them and take them away. As I said, there is no evidence they went intending to be violent. There is no evidence as has been implied or actually stated that the protestors were starting fights. There is prior evidence that Trump supporters have been violent and threatened to kill. If it takes 15-20 minutes to clear out protestors who are making noise I don’t think it is the end of the world. They get locked up.
michael- Very well played by Trump. The people who are actually dangerous at Trump rallies are his supporters, yet they come out looking good. I am a bit less squeamish about protests than you, but you may be right. If they truly intended to stop the Trump rally, that was wrong. If they just intended to create attention for their POV for a while until they got hauled off, then I am pretty sanguine about it. If a politician wants to say ugly things, then I think those who are likely to suffer as a result should have the opportunity to pushback, and unlike Dave I don’t see this as becoming the norm. You don’t see this happening everywhere else.
Steve
@Icepick
Some time back, I said that the public shaming tactic would never work on Putin, and he was in Syria for the long haul. I was informed that Putin was just a tin pot dictator (or something similar) who wanted to be accepted as a world leader, and he had just been snookered by the elegant black male US President who the racist white American males hated.
The Left is at it again, and like before, they are trying the shame game against people who are no longer playing. Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio are still playing the game. They think shaming Trump and his supporters is still a viable tactic. This also means that they (Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio) can be shamed into doing anything and everything the Left wants by just calling them or threatening to call them racists or any other *.ists.
To all the Trump hating Republicans: this is the game you are playing. You would do best to elect Hillary Clinton because she will keep your lovely world intact. You can cower in the corner while the Left decides what you can and cannot think. Best of all, you do not need to respond. The Left will provide every talking point you need.
Here is the thing. When Trump is gone, the sentiment that drove the supporters to Trump will not be gone, and it will just keep building for the next Trump. If you think Trump is bad, I suspect you ain’t gonna like the next one. It is your world and your rules, and you all are the ones with something to lose. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
“When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.”
I agree entirely. There’s an accepted kabuki in these situations. You shout, they round you up, you jump around and shout some more, and security hauls you off. No violence on either side, and the event is allowed to proceed.
TastyBits:
Ah, the fragility of the white male, on full display. You can’t take half of what black men have taken in this country – what people like you have told them they should just deal with and accept. But when life gets hard for the white male it quickly moves to threats of violence and mutterings about the need for white strong-men.
Weak. Very, very weak.
“The people who are actually dangerous at Trump rallies are his supporters, yet they come out looking good.”
The incidents of “violence” from Trump’s supporters are low in number but high in the media looping them repeatedly, making them appear to be more voluminous than they really are. However, here and here are a few samples of incitement from others at these rallies. In fact, one reporter, when asked about who is causing the problems at these rallies, candidly said that Trump seemed to be doing little to tamp them down. But, that most of the angry emotion shown by Trump supporters were mainly reactions to those crashing the rallies in the first place.
IMO, whether you support someone or not, the idea of squashing free, even ugly speech is not a good trend.
” You can’t take half of what black men have taken in this country “
Ah, back to racial mutterings by Michael…. the wound will never heal with people like you Michael.
@michael reynolds
Let me help you out with what is coming on your side. As soon as President Obama is out of office, the black voters are going to start realizing they have been used by the Left like the Trump supporters have been used by the Right. The Left has been scaring them into voting for Democrats, and they have gotten less than nothing. They are worse off than the horrors they were promised if the Republicans got elected. That is where the Trump voters are.
I do not go around preaching that black, white, green, or purple men, women, or children human or otherwise should do or not do or should accept or not accept anything. I usually can identify with the people at the bottom because I know that they and anybody in and around the bottom is going to get screwed. I get street cred because I do not just talk about a lot of general, talking point crap.
I have lived in the gentrified areas long before a lot of rich white people moved in and ran off the black residents. I can and have written how the poor and working class black people get screwed, but it applies to whites, also. The difference between me and the rich white progressives is that I know what the f*ck I am talking about.
I will recap. I do not support or endorse “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. I am philosophically inclined towards libertarianism, Austrianism, and rabid Objectivism, but in order to work, they require far more work than any one individual can or will do. Had you not been playing hooky, you would know that I believe that we have a socialized money supply and a financialized economy, and both of these things cannot coexist with Republicans’ anti-Keynesian positions.
I know that there is racism in the US. This is first hand knowledge not statistics. I also know there is a lot of bigotry, racial ignorance, racial intolerance, racial insensitivity, and just plain stupidity in the US, and sometimes one can be confused for another and other times many may be overlayed.
As you move closer to the bottom, your ability to control your live decreases. When you are at the bottom, you do not like it, but you know how it works. The only reason to accept it is to keep from going crazy. I do not recommend it, but I understand why people do. I understand why black people would vote Democratic. I understand why free-trade sounds like a good idea.
As for the police, I was a Deputy in Orleans Parish back in the 1980’s, and NOPD was as corrupt as any other police department. I know a little something about how poor and working class people get treated, and since it was New Orleans, it was almost all black. I am neither stupid nor blind, and I am straight-up. I tell it like it is, and even if I am going to lie on you, I will tell you to your face.
The difference between me and all you bleeding-heart liberals and progressives is that I know when the story I am hearing is a load of crap. When the story does not make sense or it does not sound right, I can usually tell. Many times, somebody has combined incidents, embellished them, or just created crap. Criminals are stupid, and crooked cops are not much better.
Unlike the vast majority of progressives (black and white), I have seen what goes on with my own eyes up close and personal. I do not need to spout talking points that I do not understand. I am not condescending nor sympathetic. I can empathize, but there is not a damn thing I can do about it. Nobody in your party is going to help, and nobody in the other party will even acknowledge that there is a problem.
So yeah, they are f*cked. They know it, and I know it. The only comfort I can give them is that I am not far behind, and because I tend to piss-off my demographic, they would lump in with them if possible. It just happens that I am useful, and therefore, I am tolerated.
It really does not matter what you do, say, or think. Like the Middle East, it has been set in motion, and there is no going back. Trump is beside the point, and if or when he goes, it will only cause a replacement to rise. The real danger is on your side. Once your serfs realize that they do not need to accept the crap you shovel down their throats. When they see the Trump supports refusing to play the game and nothing happening to them, you will have big problems.
I understand that the other rubes have not put two and two together, but I would have thought that you were much more cunning. One king can never allow any regicide to stand. If it is OK to kill one king, it is OK to kill them all. The Republicans understand this, and they would rather elect Hillary Clinton than allow Trump supports to win. If Trump supports win, it means that the black Democrat voters (and those at the bottom) can win, and like your Republican opponents, you really do not want that.
If you get your wish, the Trump supporters and the black and other Democrat serfs would realize that they have a lot in common, and they would also realize that you have more in common with the Republicans you rail against but seem to never defeat their agenda. That would be something.
Thanks to the Democrats, the black voters have less than nothing, and you have a lot to lose. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jan, the werewolf interesting thing to me is that Reynolds is so angry. He’s rich, living the good k fe, and politically he says he is about to get everything he wants. So why so angry?
I know why I’m angry. I’ve had all my dreams and even expectations taken from me, been dumped on the waste heap of America. And I’m lucky I’m not in far worse shape. Worse still, the leaders of the country are telling me I deserve it, and they’re going to do whatever they can to see to it I lose what I’ve got left. So I get my anger, and the anger of the Trump voters.
So why is some rich liberal so damned angry with a country that is being turned into the Third World shit hole uniparty state of his dreams? I don’t get it.
I hate typing on phones.
TB , Reynolds is safe. We all know how much blacks love rich Jews that want nothing to do with them.
jan–Did you even read your links? A memo saying people should try to oppose Trump is cause to beat up people at rallies? Really? Tearing up a sign is cause to hit someone? I guess I can always count on you to give us the official conservative POV.
Steve
TB–In the 70s and 80s I also lived and worked in the poor black areas of Philadelphia (after growing up with long periods of poverty in rural and small town Midwest). Been shot at, stabbed twice. I still don’t think that makes me any official representative of black people, or of poor people for that matter. However, I think it is abundantly clear that one of the main reasons minorities, not just blacks, continue to stay with Democrats is that it is very clear that conservatives don’t want them. When you are winning you party nominations with stories about welfare queens an dMexican rapists, where would a minority go? Heck, even Asians vote against the GOP.
Steve
@steve
I have never stated or implied I am an official or unofficial representative, and nobody accused you of it either. Therefore, you added it for some specific reason. I will state again: No white progressive is going to throw the “everybody is a racist but me” crap on me, and this especially goes for rich white progressives living in lily white gated communities.
If tomorrow every minority woke up with pale skin, the Republicans would not embrace them as long lost relatives. They would still be poor, and they would still be treated as poor. The Republicans would still have nothing good to say about them, but they would have to work a little harder to identify some but not many. Your address, school, speech patterns, etc. all can be used to identify your social status.
For years, the Trump voters voted Republican because they had nowhere else to go, and look what it got them.
I do not have a party, and I do not vote. Clinton, Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio could be elected co-Presidents with each one being in office for six days and Bernie Sanders having Sunday. I could give a rat’s ass. President Trump could hang a sign on the Oval Office door, “Be Back in 4 Years”.
There is little of what is argued over that either affects my life or that I have or will ever have any control over. ISIS is not coming into my neighborhood. I do not get a say in what interest rates the Fed charges. Nobody consulted me about the right to take my property and give it to somebody else. If I piss-off somebody with money or political pull, I am screwed, and it does not matter how many times I voted or for whom.
I also realize that the people at the bottom are worse off, but I am not a Trump supporter. I have been here for a long time. Trump supporters are just getting here, and in truth, a lot of them were the ones I argued with at one time. Most of them still do not see the connection with poor and working class blacks, and unfortunately, they may never. If so, you and your party should begin praying to whatever entity you can.
If it makes you all feel better, start parsing sentences for code words and dog whistles, and then, you can incorporate these into flowcharts detailing how the racism has been organized. You can use this to prove that the Trump supporters are ____ (fill in the blank) and shame the Trump supporters into submission. If it does not work on them, you can scare the Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio supporters, and they should fall right back in line.
A memo saying people should try to oppose Trump is cause to beat up people at rallies?
Never said that, Steve. The link was posted as an example of how outsiders provoked people attending Trump rallies. Sometimes even touching a person causes a negative over-reaction. It appears that some of the violence was reactive, not initiated by the Trump attendees.
In a way your response to my post was kind of over-reactive too, as far as what I was trying to clarify — the heightened emotions that happen with party crashers. There was no condoning of violence by me (like you implied), just a depiction that someone did something untoward first which then precipitated an angry response.