Donald Trump Rally Comes To Logical Conclusion

A lot of very bad dudes

[contextly_sidebar id="uzeWjqgC9Ya95Ou8RwXw2yuk27OMWSiA"]Donald Trump's rally in Chicago was cancelled Friday night after hundreds of protesters (probably all personally paid by George Soros, according to Breitbart commenters, who know what's really going on) got into the venue at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion. Instead of facing the first large, organized group of protesters to appear at one of his hatefests, the Trump campaign instead sent a spokesman onstage to announce the rally was off, and to ask people to "go in peace," just like at the end of a papist Mass. Oddly, many of those inside the arena instead adopted the Trump-approved technique of roughing up protesters; about the best that can be said of the fuck-tussle is that it stopped short of a full-blown riot.

Earlier Friday, at a St. Louis rally, Trump had pined for an unspecified Golden Age of American politics, when beating the shit out of protesters was perfectly routine:

Trump complained to the crowd of 3,000 that “part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick protesters out] is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.”

“There used to be consequences. There are none anymore,” he said. “These people are so bad for our country. You have no idea folks, you have no idea.” [...]

“We don’t even win here with protesters anymore,” he complained.

Under President Trump, apparently we'll make America great again by winning against protesters, possibly by unleashing the dogs and the fire hoses, and life will be beautiful and prosperous again. Trump also complained in St. Louis that

They're allowed to get up and interrupt us horribly and we have to be very, very gentle ... They can swing and hit people, but if we hit them back, it's a terrible, terrible thing, right?

Not that he was advocating violence or anything, mind you. Part of the problem, Trump explained, is that even our brave police officers are held back from giving protesters the vigorous beatings they so richly deserve. The police, he said,

“are being politically correct, so it takes a little longer. The protesters realize there are no consequences anymore. Our country has to toughen up, folks.”

He added: “It would be so nice …,” leaving the rest of the sentence to the crowd’s imagination. “I won’t say what’s on my mind, folks. I’m a nice person, I refuse to say.”

Look, it's not Donald Trump's fault if people fill in the blanks by assuming he was advocating mob violence. It's entirely possible he was going to say "It would be so nice if we could all hold hands and sing some Peter, Paul and Mary songs together. Toughly."

After the cancellation of the Chicago event, Trump took credit for his wisdom and skill at conflict resolution, telling MSNBC's Chris Matthews,

"Rather than having everybody get in and mix it up," Trump said, "I thought it would be a wise thing, after speaking with law enforcement, a wise thing to postpone the rally."

[contextly_sidebar id="qtKLd1Dhze8ti1nVgTqvisc8gUoIKQlH"]Ever the Negative Nellies, the Big Media had to keep pointing out that Chicago police insisted they hadn't advised Trump to cancel the event, as if Trump simply making shit up were something new. Chicago's interim police Superintendent John Escalante said, "We were not consulted and we had no role in whether or not the event should be canceled." But did anyone consider the possibility that by "law enforcement," maybe Trump meant his own campaign, which is a law unto itself? 

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow even went so far as to suggest that Trump's history of increasingly violent rhetoric may have somehow encouraged his supporters to behave in an untoward fashion:

Other Republican candidates seemed to think Trump somehow bore some responsibility for the escalating violence, no doubt because they don't read Breitbart comment threads and are unaware of George Soros's responsibility. Ted Cruz, also campaigning in Illinois, told reporters,

"In any campaign, responsibility starts at the top" [...]

"When you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence," he continued, "you create an environment that only encourages that sort of nasty discourse."

Marco Rubio, his emotion chip now reset to Blandly Presidential, said that even though the protests were part of an "organized effort to disrupt a rally," he also believed "the tone and tenor of Donald Trump's rallies over the last few months has been disturbing to a lot of people":

"I would point out there isn't violence at my events, there isn't violence at Ted's events, there isn't violence at a Kasich event, there isn't violence at a Sanders event, there isn't violence at a Clinton event," he told reporters. "There's only one presidential candidate who has violence at their events."

John Kasich issued a statement saying Both Sides Do It, but mostly holding Trump responsible:

Tonight, the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly ... Some let their opposition to his views slip beyond protest into violence, but we can never let that happen.

Trump, for his part, is back to his accustomed role as the aggrieved victim who swears it's time to get tough again:

Trump is through being cool, and now it's time to bang some heads and beat some butts. And it will all be somebody else's fault.

Happily, the Washington Free Beacon explained who was ultimately responsible for the unrest in Chicago: Bernie Sanders.

Supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) stirred up major unrest at the University of Illinois at Chicago Friday during a scheduled rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

A swarm of protesters began holding up signs supporting Sanders and yelling “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!” as fist fights broke out around the arena and the stage was even taken over by protesters.

After explaining that "fighting broke out" at the venue and the streets outside, the Free Beacon solemnly closed by adding, "There has been, as of now, no response from the Sanders campaign."

Yet instead of apologizing to Donald Trump for sowing discord and violence, Sanders instead held his own campaign event in Chicago (miraculously free of violence) and told NBC Chicago, "I think what the American people see on television is supporters of his actually physically hurting people who are protesting," even though some of the protesters at Trump's canceled rally were definitely holding "Bernie" signs, which Trump supporters had no choice but to rip out of their hands and tear up. When are we finally going to see some responsibility taken in this ugly campaign?

[ Breitbart / NYT / Chicago Tribune / Politico / Salon / St Louis Post-Dispatch / CNN / NBC / Washington Free Beacon / NBC Chicago ]