[UPDATE: The story just gets uglier. The Trump campaign is calling the allegedly assaulted reporter a liar; meanwhile, the guy caught on video punching a protester has now threatened to kill him. See updates at end of post.]
The latest video of violence at a Trump rally may be the most chilling one yet. In the video from last night (you can find it at the end of this post), a black protester gets punched in the face by a white Trump supporter as he’s being escorted off the premises.
So which of the two men gets wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by security? The protester. Trump’s “security” guards seem to provide about as much real security as did the Hells Angels at Altamont. (Happily, the actual puncher has been charged with assault.)
It’s easy enough to see why these incidents keep happening, and it’s not just because Trump rallies are filled with angry racist shitheads.
It’s also because Trump has indicated, again and again, that he approves of his supporters roughing up, and tossing out, protesters; indeed, on one recent occasion Trump himself said of a protester being tossed out of a rally that “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
Now assorted media outlets are reporting that a top Trump aide has assaulted a female reporter.
According to the reporter in question, Breitbart’s Michelle Fields, Trump was wandering around talking to reporters after a press conference. She asked him a question about affirmative action.
Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.
One witness told the Daily Beast that Field’s assailant, reportedly Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, had “yank[ed] her down toward the ground like a ragdoll,”
Wait, you may be wondering, did you just tell me that Trump’s campaign manager (allegedly) assaulted a reporter from Breitbart?
Breitbart? The agenda-driven right-wing pseudo-journalistic entity that’s pretty much completely on board the Trump train? The “news” site that once published an article with the breathless, braggy title “Donald Trump Praises Breitbart’s Washington Political Editor Matthew Boyle: ‘Very Good Reporter.'”
Well, yeah. Apparently Lewandowski mistook her for a real journalist from a real publication. As the Daily Beast notes,
Lewandowski’s explanation to [Breitbart’s Matthew] Boyle, said these sources, was that he and Fields had never met before and that he didn’t recognize her as a Breitbart reporter, instead mistaking her for an adversarial member of the mainstream media.
Oh, ok then, no harm no foul!
So far, at least according to the most recent news reports I’ve seen, Breitbart has released only a very tepid statement on the alleged attack, noting that “someone” had assaulted their reporter, and that if that someone was Corey Lewandowski, “Corey owes Michelle an immediate apology.”
It seems pretty clear that Breitbart is more interested in its friendly relationship with Trump than it is in the safety of its reporters.
And Trump doesn’t seem to care at all that his freaking campaign manager, according to multiple witnesses, physically assaulted a female reporter whose only crime was asking The Donald a question he evidently didn’t want to answer.
Racist violence is now a regular feature of Trump rallies. Will actual physical assaults on members of the media by Trump staffers become a thing too?
UPDATE: This story just gets uglier by the minute. The Trump campaign is flatly denying that the assault on Fields happened, saying the accusations are “entirely false.” Lewandowski, meanwhile, has accused Fields of being “an attention seeker.” Salon has a useful post with more details.
Fields, for her part, Tweeted a photo of the bruises she says are a result of the assault, and Washington Post reporter Ben Terris has provided more details of the assault, which he says he witnessed.
Breitbart, whose response to the alleged assault was at first rather tepid, now says (through a spokesperson) that “Breitbart continues to stand 100% with Michelle Fields and believes that Corey Lewandowski must accept responsibility for his actions and apologize.” The “news” site has also suspended a reporter who posted a bunch of Tweets seeming to imply that Fields was making up the assault.
Meanwhile, the guy who sucker-punched the protester told Inside Edition that he had no regrets, saying that he liked “knocking the hell out of that big mouth,” adding that the protester “deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.”
Slate has more details and a transcript of the interview.
What the hell.
Here’s the video of the protester getting putnched at a Trump rally yesterday:
If Trump were to fall down a one-way rabbit hole tomorrow, the permission he has given to openly persecute “others” wouldn’t. Nonetheless, if it’s not to get much worse, that rabbit hole must happen before he gets to the White House.
And yet the real racism, as according to Scott Adams, is comparing Donald Trump to Hitler.
I hope that both of these victims of violence will recover, and I fervently, fervently hope that Donald Trump disappears from US politics in embarrassing defeat.
I don’t think The Donald could land a punch, honestly. I think he would get his ass knocked the fuck out. I don’t advocate violence under any circumstances, but I can picture him trying to punch a protester and getting knocked right off his feet onto his arrogant ass.
I wouldn’t put him above it to try punching someone he didn’t agree with, even if they were being peaceful. Drumpf and his supporters are anything but.
ETA: Also sending best wishes to the victims in this scenario. May they find peace, support, healing, and justice.
I don’t know what to think of so many people, from all over it seems, still supporting Drumpf. It’s worrisome, frightening and even laughable at times. At this point I don’t think he could do anything to lose his supporters; he has been called out for blatant lies, advocated violence, racism and misogyny and people just eat it up and cry for more. I feel like I fell through a crack into Bizarro America, I expect my coworkers to start wishing me “bad morning” any day now.
Edited because I forgot how to spell the candidate’s last name.
Drumpf himself has bragged that he could start shooting people and not lose voters. I don’t understand why people think that’s a plus for a presidential candidate. We don’t need a movie-Western gunslinger in the White House.
Fascists subvert democracy through bullying and violence. If this violence starts spilling out of the rallies and into the streets, look out. If Trump starts indirectly making threats that his fringe supporters carry out, beware. This could grow into a full blown fascist movement if he continues down this path.
This is a very dangerous situation. The Republican convention could very well be a powder keg.
He’s claimed that he’ll pay the legal fees of any of his supporters who engage in violence on his behalf. It’ll be interesting to see if he covers John McGraw, or if this is just another outright lie delivered with the arrogant confidence that his gullible idiot supporters love him for.
And yet my dad wants me to go to a Trump rally, the source of all this violence, in my hometown Saturday. Ye gods. I told him I don’t want to go to the Trump rally, but he can if he wants to. Here are the reasons I’m not going:
1. I don’t support Trump at all.
2. It starts at 10:00 am but you have to be at the rally site 3 hours beforehand to even stand a chance of getting in, and I’m not dragging my ass out of bed at 6:30 on a Saturday morning to see and hear Trump yell in person when I can catch him yelling on TV/the Internet at pretty much any given moment.
3. All the violence that’s been happening at Trump rallies deeply concerns me and I don’t want to be near it/on the receiving end of it.
I don’t have Twitter, but I’ll do this anyway in support of freedom and the great John Oliver: #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain
That video is unbelievable. Like, there’s really no ambiguity there. Protester is walking out, gets punched in the face, then “subdued” by security, all without any provocation. I’m happy that the attacker is being charged with assault, but the whole thing is completely unacceptable.
~ Philomena Cunk
http://youtu.be/j4vuUfnTEkg
Ohio is an open carry state. The GOP convention is in Cleveland. There’s still a chance it could be a contested convention. If the GOP and Cleveland police are not already working on plans to deal with possible violence, then they will be directly responsible for any violence that might happen at their convention.
Viscaria, Scott Adams tends toward the MRA side of things, so I’m not one bit surprised he’s claiming that comparing Trump/Drumpf (my desire for accuracy and my love of #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain are warring it out here) to Hitler is racism. I don’t know if I’d make that direct comparison myself, but there are several disturbing similarities between the two.
Having had an ancestor who was imprisoned in a concentration camp, the fact that Trump/Drumpf’s policies have the potential to restrict the rights of many Americans and are still gaining traction and the possibilities of what that might lead to here have me incredibly worried.
Being half German, I also hate that Trump/Drumpf’s giving a sizable portion of my ancestors even more of a bad reputation than they already (and, in the case of the Nazis and the Holocaust, deservedly) had.
I don’t know how many people here are familiar with the wonderful Philomena Cunk, but you might like her. She’s our greatest sage here in the UK.
@C.S.Strowbridge
It gets worse…the bars near the convention will legally be allowed to be open until 4am…
All that’s missing is the brown shirts…
Well…
What’s even scarier is that Cruz has recently now has the powers that control the GOP backing him, not because they like him but because they think he is more likely to be controlled.
Honestly both right now seem to be incredibly scary from every view.
Even with Trump losing some points in the polls, it may a but too little too late. Unless the GOP does some political shenanigans where Trump doesn’t have enough delegates to be called president and they can pull some strings go make Cruz president, Trump is going to the GOP nominee.
Honestly how many of you guys think this Trump debacle is simply displaying an undercurrent of fascism that is growing within the US? I fear that in my lifetime I’ll have to see literal fascists popping up like cancerous tumors infecting the political/social sphere.
Assaulting a reporter was a bad move.
The media has been all too happy to provide Trump with not too critical coverage because the circus aspect of his candidacy sells. But being too adversarial with the press can sink and campaign. His fervent supporters won’t care if the ‘liberal” media turns on him, but it will hurt him in the general.
Seriously, what is wrong with these people?!?
That man who punched the protester is 78 years old, FFS. My goodness.
Spot on, OoglyBoggles. Definitely neither Trump nor Cruz are good options for president, and the thought of fascism taking hold here in America has me extremely worried.
I was talking to someone on Monday who was born in Germany and grew up there in the 1950s and 60s. She said that throughout her school education they were constantly being warned about what to look out for if a state was turning to fascism.
She also said that she thought all the warning signs are currently present in the USA, and in the UK where we are.
And it’s now being reported that the Drumpf team is denying the assault on Fields:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/10/3758686/trump-campaign-accuses-assaulted-reporter-of-lying/
@bluecat I’ve been seeing the signs in the US since Bush Jr. Saw the signs in Mr. Harper’s ‘reign’ up here in Canada. Ergh.
Plus there’s that Secret Service agent who choke-slammed a reporter a couple weeks ago.
Watching the presidential campaign from overseas is truly baffling. Are there really that many people who support Trump? Have they ever listened to anything he’s said? Do they not realize how close this is to fascism?
And is this “insulting the appearance of other candidates/reporters/other people” only a Trump thing? They all seem to be doing it a lot. I don’t think I’ve seen it in serious politics in Germany…
@Damy
There are a lot of racist hicks both new and old that absolutely HATE the fact that the US is generally swinging more progressive despite being functionally a plutocracy. Their loss in gay marriage, the taking down condeferate flags, soon no longer having white be the majority both in population and in institutions combined make them want to support an Authoritarian Daddy who will make everything better.