A Couple of Links on Violence at Trump Rallies

I don't think I can speak to what's happening authoritatively since, thank God, I've never been to a Trump rally. I do like to hear the wisdom of my betters, though. Josh Marshall:

Trump has repeatedly claimed that instances of crowd violence at his rallies occurred when protestors - "bad dudes" - attacked his supporters and his supporters fought back. Until the events last night in Chicago, there is no evidence that anything like this ever happened. Not once. It is all lies. It's still not clear exactly what happened last night in Chicago. I have seen numerous reports from the event that show that the great majority of protestors were peaceful, in many cases there as families, from various political and community organizations. But clearly there were scuffles and disorderly behavior inside that both sides participated in - who started what, I have no idea. It was a qualitative advance, or descent, from what had come before it.

But let's go back to the incident with Dimassimo, who appears to be a left wing activist affiliated with Black Lives Matter and similar groups. This is not only totally unacceptable behavior, it is also totally unhinged behavior. When you try to rush the stage when a presidential candidate with Secret Service protection is speaking, you are literally taking your life in your hands. This is the kind of crazy thinking, which even if Dimassimo didn't intend to hurt Trump, leads to very bad outcomes. And this is from the anti-Trump side!

I'm sure that Trump supporters are, in the majority, assholes. Don't help to mitigate their assholery by engaging in it on the left, though. Charles Pierce:

Stay out of the buildings.

Stop being played for such suckers. Stop enlisting yourself in his bloody vaudeville. Stop giving him stuff to lie about at all the rallies that actually do end up happening. Stop making yourselves part of the show, because it's not working. It doesn't affect him at all. In fact, his campaign gains strength from it, like some science-fiction monster that absorbs the energy of whatever attacks it and then uses it to destroy. It doesn't gain you any allies; as should be clear by most of the meeping responses from the elite political press, the best it can get you is lectures about how Both Sides in our politics should settle down and let cooler heads ponder impotently about How We Got To This Point. 

Yes, that's what I'd like to be able to say as well as he does. 

And here are some of the fine Christians that make up the Trump supporters.

Ayy, fuck Islam, Allah is a whore, Jesus is the most high God, and you bitches are done! (makes gun-fingers) Fuck you!

There is also a video clip from the Free Beacon, no less, at the link. It's easy to nut pick, but probably easier at a Trump rally than in most locations.