Told ya:
You are only half way to a full I told you so, he is really more* threatening* to do what you predicted.
However, I do think he now wants to get in a real scrum with the occupy crowd, give Bernie enough publicity to win, and then try to beat him by being the law and order candidate in the midst of mass protests and/or riots. He will try to be a candidate who appeals to the big middle ground, who are generally not too sympathetic to the crusty activist scenesters, or the BLM actions.
What this means is that he is scared of running against Hillary.
Huh? Trump never claimed that he canceled the rally to protect* himself*. His statements refer to the protesters inside the venue, not ones that might have been trying to block the entrance and exit.
Now that is good analysis. Similar to how Reagan took on Berkeley protesters in the Sixties.
You aren’t really. You are just condemning uncivility.
I doubt whether he’s scared of Sanders. I agree though that he thinks that he can gain in the primaries and possibly in November from hippie punching. A trap has been laid, months in the making.
Thinking it over, disciplined nonviolent civil disobedience be an effective counter. Go the silent protest route with lots of videoing. Presumably Trump would lie about them on camera and his supporters would act offensively. Basically, we/they should out law and order Trump.
Unfortunately, BLM isn’t especially organized any crazy can say they are part of it. So it’s hard.
Except that it is neither Government business nor an official function.
Matt Yglesias: No more apologies, Trump shouldn’t be given power to issue Presidential pardons at will.
Well of course.
But most of the lefty activist crowd aren’t those kinds of people, and Trump knows it.
These are people who very predictably get enraged by the smallest things.
They don’t want to lie there getting carried out silently while Trump tells them to go home to mommy, take a bath, and get a job. That would be a major trigger.
They want to take over, occupy, and SHUT SHIT DOWN! because they are certain of their own righteousness. Just listen to them, it’s clear.
Lets be clear here. Non violent direct action is a legal form of protest. That includes attempting to get on stage and disrupt a rally. You might not like it, but its legal. A rally is not a government function, possibly you could charge a protestor with trespassing but I doubt even that would fly.
Trump is the one calling on his supporters to do illegal actions, namely assault. There is no equivalence between peaceful protest and assault. Trumps supporters are the brownshirts.
But the rally never was disrupted because it was cancelled before it began. The Trump campaign alone were the ones who made that decision. At the time they made that decision there had not been any acts of violence inside or outside the UIC Pavilion. None of the ugliness happened until the event was cancelled.
Look, I get the point you are making. If there was a plan to rush the stage then I would agree that is deplorable and wrong. Can you provide any cite indicating this is what would have happened? Things that might have happened don’t really count, do they?
The Trump folks cancelled the event and have been lying about how the decision was made since Friday night. The CPD and the UIC police have made it clear they did not recommend cancelling the event. Considering UIC is a univeristy campus known to have a high level of student activism and a very diverse student body it is very very odd the Trump people thought this was a good place to hold their event, particularly given that Allstate Arena was available on that date and in a part of the Chicago area much more likely to be friendly to Trump.
If LBJ had decided to run in 1968 and held a campaign event on the Berkley campus, would anyone have really been surprised if the thing turned ugly? I see little alternative but to think it likely this is the outcome the Trump campaign was anticipating.
I seriously doubt that rushing the stage is legal. Sounds like disturbing the peace, such as it is.
Yes: Donald Trump Is Basically Encouraging Violence Now – Mother Jones
True, sort of. The sort of action I described requires training. Not just planning. Training. Nobody is, “Those kind of people.”
Actually, I think they’ve been pretty peaceful, considering they are dealing with a guy engaging in hate speech.
I concede this point. We’re talking about large groups of people of course, but there is a strain of more-righteous-than-thou in these sorts of crowds. The sort of plan I’m proposing would necessarily be conducted by a subsection of the crowd. It’s not impossible though. There was a Muslim woman conducting silent and polite protest at a Trump event this fall: she was insulted by Trump, the crowd shouted epithets, and Trump’s security escorted her out. She has my thanks. Positive behavior helps us all. As does illuminating experimentation. Muslim Woman Ejected from Trump Rally as Crowd Hurls Epithets | Common Dreams
And also: c’mon. Trump has gone way beyond dog-whistling. And he attracts white supremacists more than, say, Cruz. Surely that’s relevant.
Say what now? Very often nonviolent direct action is illegal, and the people engaged in it know it and are prepared to accept the legal consequences of their action–indeed, consider accepting those consequences a vital part of the action.
Wait, let me get this straight: Trump decided not to show up, not to protect himself, but to protect the attendees? As in, an event with Trump present is more dangerous for attendees than one without Trump present? OK, if that’s what you want to claim, then I’ll take your word for it… but just what does that imply?
Personally, I’m beginning to wonder if Trump ever planned on showing up. Because it looks an awful lot like he just decided from the outset that he was going to throw a rally for Sanders, for whatever reason. Why else throw it in the middle of Sanders’ turf? Why else give the tickets away for free? Why else ask the people getting tickets if they’re Democrats not planning on supporting Trump, and then give them the tickets anyway?
Yeah, I won’t say Trump is orchestrating all this, but I wouldn’t stand too close to the Reichstag.
Posts like this are why I wish we had a “like” button.
Yes, this was apparent to some of us in Chicago from the outset, when the venue was first announced. This was trolling and it worked modestly well. I think he was disappointed a bit by the lack of violent action from the protesting side but enough there to work with.
They were obviously protesting, implying Trump and his supporters were Nazis by wearing yellow stars. Seems disruptive enough to warrant removal, if that is how the people in charge of the event want to handle it. I wouldn’t expect Bernie to let me stay in one of his rallies if I was expressing what I thought about the anti-GMO clique that he panders to. And you can’t blame the crowd for responding to people basically calling them Nazis.
Sometimes self appointed progressive activists convince themselves that they are the only ones that get to use derision and outrage in a political context.
And any piece unquestionably citingCAIR like that has no credibility.
Does the word “disruptive” actually have a meaning, when you use it? If so, could you explain what the meaning is? Because I cannot see how the word “disruptive” makes any more sense in that sentence than words like “aquatic,” “reedy,” or “tobacco-filled” would.