# Sanders's Supporters Brownshirts Stop Trump Rally in Chicago **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 12, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710 "2016-03-12T02:28:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/361 "2016-03-14T04:54:41Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > The anti-GMO movement is the one pushing the labeling nonsense. He panders to the crowd big time. There wouldn’t be room on my sign for further nuance, were I someone who disrupted the rallies of people I disagree with, and needed such a sign. As I looked at the issue the reality is that regarding labeling you may had a point if about 90% of the people that (in some polls) are in favor of labeling were all liberal or Democrats. No, the thing is that I have seen reports from the anti-GMO people being proud that many independents and Republicans support that. So if we should do it I have proposed that any labeling should include also the problems or how much crops have been changed by traditional breeding, and adding a factor about the safety and testing already done, the point should be that the labels should also teach about how silly the fears are. The point still stands though: claiming that Bernie is against GMOs and therefore causing deaths at Nazi levels by not using the technology was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/362 "2016-03-14T04:57:35Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Jump on stage at a concert and try to touch a performer. You might get smacked. Having a ticket to an event is not a license to disrupt it. Are people really this confused about property rights? A political rally is different to a concert. You do have the right to try to disrupt a political rally, or hold up signs, or shout “TRUMP IS A FASCIST NAZI” or “TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE NAZIS”. Trump then has a right to throw them out, but his supporters do not have a right to use violence even if they are passively resisting (eg sitting down and having to carried out by several people). This is the law and part of the political process. Of course Trumps supporters are also free to try to disrupt Bernie’s rallies if they want to. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/363 "2016-03-14T05:18:33Z")
Trump bailed out before it started. How do you disrupt something that didn’t happen? ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/364 "2016-03-14T05:31:52Z")
Tell it to the Bernshirt Occupiers in Chicago [who are bragging about shutting down the rally.](https://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt/photos/a.187967227937716.47329.184749301592842/1093787217355708/?type=3&theater) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/365 "2016-03-14T05:45:50Z")
Oh, OK, then, for _this_, you will rely on their testimony! But naturally, if they say they were vocal but peaceful, they’re a bunch of lying shits. Surely it must have occurred to you that maybe Trump grabbed a perfect opportunity to play the victim? Or is his record for complete candor and open honesty too good to even consider that? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/366 "2016-03-14T05:49:22Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Bernshirt Do you honestly think that disrupting a rally is enough to call Bernie Sanders supporters Brown Shirts? Its infantile and stupid. Grow up and also go read some history about what the real Brownshirts did. It’s pretty offensive of you to make that comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/367 "2016-03-14T06:12:38Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Oh, OK, then, for _this_, you will rely on their testimony! But naturally, if they say they were vocal but peaceful, they’re a bunch of lying shits. Surely it must have occurred to you that maybe Trump grabbed a perfect opportunity to play the victim? You realize it can be both, right? There are a group of your typical regressive self appointed activists in Chicago that intended to shut down the rally, organized in order to do so, and accomplished what they set out to do. They wrote about shutting down the rally before hand, cheered and gloated about it as it happened, and are bragging about it afterwords. This is predictable, there is a segment of people that really do think that they should be allowed to shut down, occupy, ban, or silence any event, speaker, or area that they want because their cause is so just and of course their enemies are Hitler. Their certainty in their own righteousness trumps everyone else’s rights. Their enemies have been Hitler since before Jon Lennon heard about Yoga and went New Age. This is bad for many reasons. Trump seems to have used the predictability, divisiveness, and general ugliness of this type of behavior to his advantage. That doesn’t excuse the behavior. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/368 "2016-03-14T06:32:44Z")
[Jon Chait is spot on](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/trump-poses-unprecedented-threat-to-democracy.html), as usual: > [@](#): > > Rubio is not wrong to draw a connection between political correctness and elements of the left’s response to Trump. Donald Trump may or may not have been forthright about citing safety fears in cancelling his speech Friday night in Chicago, and disrupting the speech may or may not have been the protesters’ goal. But it is clear that protesters views the cancellation of the speech as a victory, breaking out in cheers of “We stopped Trump!” > > Preventing speakers one finds offensive from delivering public remarks is commonplace on campuses. Indeed, more than 300 faculty members at the University of Illinois-Chicago signed a letter asking the University administration not to allow Trump to speak. I polled my Twitter followers whether they consider disrupting Trump’s speeches an acceptable response to his racism. Two-thirds replied that it is. Obviously, this is not a scientific poll, but it indicates a far broader acceptance than I expected. > > Because Trump is so grotesque, and because he has violated liberal norms himself so repeatedly, the full horror of the goal of stopping Trump from campaigning (as opposed to merely counter-demonstrating against him) has not come across. But the whole premise of democracy is that rules need to be applied in every case without regard to the merit of the underlying cause to which it is attached. If you defend the morality of a tactic against Trump, then you should be prepared to defend its morality against any candidate. Now imagine that right-wing protesters had set out to disrupt Barack Obama’s speeches in 2008. If you’re not okay with that scenario, you should not be okay with protesters doing it to Trump. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/369 "2016-03-14T06:39:44Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > A political rally is different to a concert. You do have the right to try to disrupt a political rally, or hold up signs, or shout “TRUMP IS A FASCIST NAZI” or “TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE NAZIS”. Trump then has a right to throw them out, but his supporters do not have a right to use violence even if they are passively resisting (eg sitting down and having to carried out by several people). > > This is the law and part of the political process. Of course Trumps supporters are also free to try to disrupt Bernie’s rallies if they want to. There’s only one problem with that sort of argument - it cedes politics to the biggest group, to the strongest or the most able to put up a show of force. Politics then becomes less about discussion and sharing of ideas, learning and accommodation and seeing a different perspective than it does about the strong team crowding out the weaker team. And, over time, it becomes self perpetuating and self fulfilling. If (for example) the 15% who are socialist know they are going to face a daunting gauntlet from the more powerful and intimidating 30% “self responsibility” crowd - they are going to sit down and shut-up. Which is bad. Let’s turn it around slightly - if protesters weren’t curbed in any way and could shut down an abortion clinic purely through dint of numbers - is that a good thing, or would society as a whole have lost something? When political speech is curtailed we lose something - and disrupting a rally is not right. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/370 "2016-03-14T07:18:40Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Tell it to the Bernshirt Occupiers in Chicago [who are bragging about shutting down the rally.](https://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt/photos/a.187967227937716.47329.184749301592842/1093787217355708/?type=3&theater) That’s an internet meme. It doesn’t carry the weight of fact you seem to think it does. And **TRUMP SHUT DOWN HIS OWN RALLY**. Just in case you missed that fact. > [@elucidator](#): > > Trump bailed out before it started. How do you disrupt something that didn’t happen? Exactly. As multiple folks have mentioned… ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/371 "2016-03-14T07:32:56Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > When political speech is curtailed we lose something - and disrupting a rally is not right. I think any law banning “disrupting a political rally” would have worse chilling effects than the current situation. Trump’s message is out there for anyone to see its not like people don’t know what his message is because the Chicago rally got shut down or even if a few more do. Trump’s message is offensive to many many people, its to be expected that there will be opposition to it. There was a lot less protests at Obamas’ or Bush’s rallies because their message was not xenophobic, racist and suggesting that the US commits war crimes (Trump’s “we’ll go after their families”. ) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/372 "2016-03-14T07:43:16Z")
This from the AP, as quoted in _Talking Points Memo_… [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chicago-police-say-they-advise-canceling-trump-event](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chicago-police-say-they-advise-canceling-trump-event) > [@](#): > > A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department says the agency never recommended that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cancel his campaign rally in the city…He said the department had sufficient manpower on the scene to handle any situation… Cut to the chase > [@](#): > > …Trump afterward told MSNBC in a telephone interview that he canceled the event because he didn’t “want to see people hurt or worse.” He said he thinks he “did the right thing.” > > Guglielmi says Trump never arrived at the Chicago venue. He wasn’t even there! So, anybody wonder where he was? Because we knew where he _wasn’t._ So, who told him about the dreadful violence there? Because we have witnesses and tapes say there wasn’t any. A boisterous and uncivil crowd? You mean, the kind that Trump likes to describe as “passionate”? For a gutsy, ballsy kind of guy, he sure seems to wimp out pretty easy. The cops say they had the situation in hand, “sufficient manpower”. And Elvis wasn’t in the building, never mind leaving. This shit just doesn’t add up. There is a piece missing. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/373 "2016-03-14T07:56:06Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The cops say they had the situation in hand, “sufficient manpower”. And Elvis wasn’t in the building, never mind leaving. > > This shit just doesn’t add up. There is a piece missing. Your faith in the honesty of the Chicago Police Department is certainly an interesting piece. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/374 "2016-03-14T08:09:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This from the AP, as quoted in _Talking Points Memo_… > > [Chicago Police Deny Advising Trump to Cancel Event - TPM – Talking Points Memo](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chicago-police-say-they-advise-canceling-trump-event) > Cut to the chase > > He wasn’t even there! So, anybody wonder where he was? > > Because we knew where he _wasn’t._ So, who told him about the dreadful violence there? Because we have witnesses and tapes say there wasn’t any. A boisterous and uncivil crowd? You mean, the kind that Trump likes to describe as “passionate”? > > For a gutsy, ballsy kind of guy, he sure seems to wimp out pretty easy. The cops say they had the situation in hand, “sufficient manpower”. And Elvis wasn’t in the building, never mind leaving. > > This shit just doesn’t add up. There is a piece missing. We have already been through all this. Read the thread. The “sufficient manpower” was referring to getting him in and out of the building, not the inside of the venue. Trump never said that the police told him to shut the event down. He claims to have made the decision himself to avoid injuries, a reasonable enough decision considering the thousands of protesters. People went there intent on shutting down the event, gloated about it on video as it was happening, and are bragging about it afterwards. And then we have Bernie and everyone on the internet and in the media justifying it. I am sure you would be just as eager to downplay the situation if thousands of Trump supporters had mobbed in and around a Bernie rally intent on preventing it from occurring, and succeeded. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/375 "2016-03-14T08:11:51Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This shit just doesn’t add up. There is a piece missing. Exactly, Trump lied about the violence, he was always planning to cancel the rally as a way of dominating yet another media cycle by attacking Bernie’s supporters as crazy dangerous radicals. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/376 "2016-03-14T09:15:53Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Exactly, Trump lied about the violence, he was always planning to cancel the rally as a way of dominating yet another media cycle by attacking Bernie’s supporters as crazy dangerous radicals. No, he wasn’t always planning it. He just capitalized it on the fly. He may be evil, but he’s by no definition an evil genius. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/377 "2016-03-14T10:00:03Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > He may be evil, but he’s by no definition an evil genius. This is not evil genius. Sabotaging leftist movements by planting people inside them to urge them to violence and then painting them as dangerous violent radicals is a very old technique. Heard of COINTELPRO? This is not a conspiracy theory, its been admitted that this happened by the US government. > **[COINTELPRO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO)** > > COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive. Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti-Vietnam War organi The FBI has used covert ... ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/378 "2016-03-14T10:39:28Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Of course it does. Just because someone has been allowed into an event doesn’t mean they have a right to insult the people around them without being removed. If the content of the message matters, then Frank, who insults Trump, can be removed–but Jane, who doesn’t insult Trump, cannot be removed. Is that what you’re saying? If not, you’re still misunderstanding. I’m saying **nobody has a right to be there at all without being removed**. The content of their message is irrelevant to their right to be there. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/379 "2016-03-14T11:43:29Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Right, because you say so. Trump\* is\* always talking about the scheming Jews and the superiority of the Aryan race after all. What with his Jewish daughter and a diversity of African American endorsements that are surely making Sanders green with envy, if he is paying any attention. Such a Nazi. I think this thread has long since devolved into a repetition of the same points over and over again back and forth and am pretty much checking out but this does deserve a comment. The vilified “other” being Jewish or not is immaterial. Trump is not Hitler if for no other reason than that the current United States is not 1920 to '30s Germany but the essence of Hitler was not that the specific target was Jews. No question that Jews have been the identified “other” through much of European history and were the prime one for Hitler, along with the Roma and others. The current identified others used in very similar ways are not Jews. (At least not currently.) The issue is the recipe: take a critical mass of a majority culture experiencing a major loss of status and anxiety regarding their futures and add an authoritarian demagogue exploiting it by pointing at broad brush “others” identifiable by religion or ethnicity or cultural heritage to blame. Exploit existing stereotypes and prejudices. Encourage some violence along the way. Throw in some anti-intellectualism for extra spice. Bring to boil. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710/380 "2016-03-14T12:07:20Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > We have already been through all this. Read the thread. The “sufficient manpower” was referring to getting him in and out of the building, not the inside of the venue. You have been misinformed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanderss-supporters-brownshirts-stop-trump-rally-in-chicago/748710.md?page=20)