The 2016 presidential race is entering its last months and people all across our great country are lining up at their polling places, attending rallies and showing support for their favorite candidates in a variety of ways.
As an essential part of the political process, candidates visit various cities in order to raise support for their campaigns. In most cases they are not newsworthy events, but rather a time for citizens to take advantage of the privileges that come with living in a democratic society.
In the case of Donald Trump however, the rallies are far from peaceful.
When the billionaire real estate tycoon announced his candidacy last June many, including myself, never could have imagined he would make it this far. As his popularity continues to grow, so does the violence that occurs at his events.
Trump is no stranger to hate. People of Middle Eastern and African-American descent have been ejected from his rallies for allegedly no apparent reason other than their ethnicity.
In addition to the hate that spews from the podium, at nearly every event Trump holds, has become a mainstay where someone is on the receiving end of a brutal assault. What seems like an exaggeration is actually not in the slightest. A list compiled by Slate.com gives a timeline of incidents that have occurred at eight separate rallies dating back to last October. As the videos show, many times it is peaceful African-American protesters who are subjected to the hate-filled attacks.
His rallies are now drawing comparisons to “white power” rallies because noted white supremacist, neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups frequently attend the events. They have even laid claim to a multitude of the brutal attacks.
Perhaps the most disturbing of the incidents occurred at a Trump rally on March 1 in Louisville, Kentucky. A black teenage girl is seen being pushed and shoved by grown men—one even who appears to be a veteran—on her way to being removed from the event. Afterwards the girl claims the men and women were also shouting racial slurs as she was forcefully removed.
“When I first saw the short 37-second news clip of this young girl being forcefully pushed and shoved by large grown men, my blood began to boil,” New York Daily News journalist Shaun King said. “Some seem to just be pushing her for fun to the left and to the right, just because it’s what other people were doing.”
The incident was later claimed by white nationalist Matthew Heimbach in a blog post on the Traditionalist Youth Networker—a website that promotes white supremacy—according to the Baltimore Sun.
This event transpired just after Trump called for the removal of protesters from his rally.
Images from this event are uncannily similar to images from the Little Rock Nine—the first nine students to attend desegregated public school in 1957—making Trump’s ascendance actually leading to the cascade of our country’s moral standards.
It may be unfair to directly blame Trump for the actions of others, but there is no question his hateful speeches are toxic to the mindset and behavior of his followers. When the brutality occurs at his rallies, it is almost as if his constituents are trying to please their supreme leader.
If the trend continues, it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or possibly even killed at a Trump sponsored event. What started as shouting matches last fall has progressively escalated to actual physical contact now in March.
Donald Trump’s campaign is unlike anything this country has seen in the past. We have a candidate who can stand on stage and say anything he pleases, no matter how moronic or indecent, and be praised by a significant number of people for “speaking his mind.” By slogan, he claims to “make America great again,” but in reality he is making America hate again.
Opinion columnist Reagan Earnst is a print journalism junior and may be reached at [email protected]
Trump deserves credit for one thing: he has exposed how hate in America is alive and well and has been hiding in plain sight all around us; all it needed was a Dark Overlord to bring it out. Trump is their master and he has call it forth his minions with his intoxicating venom. We have seen what they are capable of. What they *might* be capable of, if push to extremes, is too dangerous to ponder.
The same could easily be said about the BLM.
— and it usually is, by people like you.
GFUH … you’re alive!
I see you are scared big time of Trump, just as ol’ big-nose Ernst is.
You have to see hate in everything. You call yourself a Christian, but you have a seething hate for people that disagree with you. And you know if a GOPer crashed a Sanders event, you’d be writing the exact opposite … crying foul to free speech or something.
It’s believable that you and big-nose fail to see any extremes in the Obama Administration; your oblivious. A like that commercial, you fail to smell the stink of your thoughts and ideology.
GFUH is not a religious organization. The rest of your drivel I won’t dignify except to say it’s exactly the kind of bashing Trump has brought out in others which I alluded to.
GFUH … you know I was mentioning your personal Christianity … your LinkedIn is full of it.
Hey Alex, at least you didn’t conclude with name calling … so there is some improvement in your case.
To help you become less of a hating person … I recommend you say The Lord’s Prayer before you retire for the evening.
Thanks for visiting my LinkinIn profile. there’s nothing there about my religious outlook. Employers are not allowed to ask about it, so it’s not there. What IS there is some of my academic work as well as a brief statement regarding my work as the Executive Director with the Society of Christian Missioners, which was a full-charge secular administrative position. We had an ordained minister (who I hired) to handled the non-secular side of things such as the faith needs of our near 200 clients, in keeping with our organization’s basic humanitarian objectives. Between us, we served rather like two wings on a plane. you need both to get the craft off the ground. Clueless, as usual, you add two and two and come up with seven with your standard ridicule sprinkled in for good measure.
Whatever the case … your profile is … underwhelming.
Ask me if I care what you think.
This article, which is nothing more than opinion and accusations attempts to evoke an emotional reaction, to inflame, enrage. Basically it is attempting to do what it claims to be arguing against. Whether Trump has a secret Hitler tattoo remains to be seen, but articles like this don’t prove the case either way.
Evidently … when the SEIU beats down Tea Party people … it’s OK with big-nose Earnst.
The picture posted is more diversified than any Sanders rally.