Say It To My Face: Chicago’s Epic Trump Shutdown
By Steven Singer, Director BATs Research/Blogging
All fascists are cowards.
Especially Donald Trump.
The Reality TV star turned Presidential candidate is known for making bigoted statements at his rallies against Muslims, Latinos, women, black people, the disabled– basically anyone not white, male and straight.
So when thousands of these Muslims, Latinos, women, black people, etc. showed up at his rally in Chicago last night, Trump took a bold stance… and ran away.
He cancelled the rally rather than face them.
Sure there was the potential for violence if he had continued with his speech as planned, but that has never stopped him before. How many times have we seen cellphone videos of minorities being forcibly escorted from his campaign events, sometimes after being beaten or otherwise accosted? I don’t remember Trump canceling any of those events.
But when the people he denigrates show up in force, THAT’S when he pulls the plug.When voicing the same hostility-filled rant puts himself in danger, that’s when he turns tail.
THIS is your strongman, America! A sniveling coward who only has the guts to spout hate speech to a receptive audience!
Hilariously, his supporters are defending the Republican challenger’s brave retreat by appealing to the First Amendment.
Trump’s right to free speech is being violated, they say. What nonsense!
I just saw him on CNN complaining about it. And CBS. And NBC. And every other cable channel plus satellite! If that’s having your First Amendment rights violated, I wish someone would violate mine! Put my blog in the center of the 24-hour news cycle!
Let’s get one thing straight: the First Amendment guarantees your right to free speech. It does not guarantee a right to consequence free speech.
When you build a political campaign on the notion that some people are inferior to people like you, those so-called inferior people are eventually going to call you out.
There’s no hiding behind Uncle Sam’s coattails. YOU did that. You’re responsible for dealing with it.
Another popular response is that the protesters are sinking to Trump’s level. They’re meeting one mob with another.
Wrong. You cannot equate these two groups.
Trump’s supporters are embracing a message of hatred and intolerance. The protesters are espousing a message of love and tolerance. Trump’s supporters are singling out and beating individuals or small groups of minorities. The protesters areoverwhelmingly nonviolent – though occasional sporadic violence did erupt at the rally most often when protesters defended themselves.
The protesters marched hand-in-hand into the lion’s den where they were vastly outnumbered. They put their lives on the line to make their views heard. They had the full expectation of being attacked and possibly killed, but they did it anyway.THAT is true bravery. THAT is true conviction – not someone who expected to be in a stadium full of like-minded people waiting to be whipped into a frenzy by a megalomaniac with extremely bad hair.
Which brings me to my favorite criticism of the Chicago protest. Some folks say the protesters had no idea what they were doing. They were just ignorant fools.
Exactly. People coming to protest hatred are ignorant and those coming to celebrate it are intelligent!
And finally we have the man, himself. The Donald has been crying on the news about the organized “thugs” who disrupted his rally.
He must really be rattled to call them “thugs.” Trump isn’t known for falling back onracist dog whistles. Usually he just says it outright. Did he forget his favorite N-word?
So once again Chicago shows us all the way.
The runaway Trump campaign can run roughshod over media criticism, wagging fingers and shaking heads. But the one thing it cannot handle is confrontation by the very people it denigrates.
Like a schoolyard bully, Trump retreats when you call him out.
You don’t like Muslims! Say it to my face!
You don’t like Latinos? Say it to my face!
You don’t like women…
This could take a while.
In the meantime, here’s to those brave Chicago protesters who stopped totalitarianism in its tracks!
They showed us that the only thing we need to truly make America great again is to recognize how great we are when we come together to fight for each other.
Consequence free unpopular speech is exactly what free speech is all about. You can have free speech with attendant consequences in North Korea.
ReplyDelete