More from the campaign trail:
Posted on 12/15/2015 1:38:13 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
LAS VEGAS - "It's like Obama in reverse! Obama in reverse!" said an excited Donald Trump supporter visiting from Tennessee who came to the Republican front-runner's debate-eve rally in an enormous convention room off the Vegas Strip.
He meant, first, that Trump can draw huge crowds like candidate Barack Obama did in 2008. On Monday night, Trump rallied in a cavernous convention space in the Westgate hotel-casino complex; he filled about half the room, which given its size meant that thousands of people were there. Why not hold it in the Trump International Hotel 10 minutes away? Not enough room, the Trump camp said.
The man from Tennessee also meant that Trump has brought a level of excitement to political appearances that hasn't been seen since those Obama crowds. There's no doubt the audience, made up of a large number of the working-class white supporters who are powering Trump's run nationwide, was primed for a rousing Trump performance.
Finally, the man meant that Trump is bringing new people to politics. Before the rally began, I talked to a couple who had driven from Montana to Las Vegas - we're talking 900 miles - specifically to see Trump's appearance. The wife pointed to her husband and said, "Sixty years old and he's never voted in his life." The man nodded and said, "Never had a reason to." Trump, he added, gave him that reason.
But there was at least one big difference from those old Obama rallies: As a general rule, far right-wing protesters did not systematically disrupt Sen. Obama's rallies and, as a result, dominate press coverage of those events. Now, the far left-wing version of that disruption has become the story of many Trump gatherings.
In that sense, Trump's rally at the Westgate was the most protested, the loudest, the rowdiest and most Trumpian rally yet.
The protesters who come to Trump's events, many of them affiliated with some arm of the Black Lives Matter movement, have refined their techniques. It goes like this: They come to a rally, settle into the crowd, and then one of them begins yelling loudly, causing the crowd to react - usually with a chant of "Trump! Trump! Trump!" - and then the protester tries to make the inevitable security removal as long and as noisy as possible.
Only after all that is done does another protester repeat the process. Then yet another protester does it. With sequential removals, a small group of demonstrators can screw things up for quite a while.
In Vegas, they waited until Trump was well under way and had brought to the microphone a man named Jamiel Shaw, whose son, a promising high school football player, was murdered in 2008 when an illegal immigrant gangbanger "mistook him for a rival gang member because of the victim's red Spider-Man backpack" and shot him, according to a local news report.
As Jamiel Shaw spoke, a protester named Ender Austin III, standing roughly in the center of the crowd, began yelling about gun control and other issues. Austin was eventually hustled out of the room, but it took a while, and it wasn't quiet. First Westgate security staff, dressed in black suits, tried to get him to move. Then local police took over. All the while, Secret Service - who had set up metal detectors and screened attendees as they arrived, but generally stay out of the scuffling - kept an eye on things.
As it turned out, I happened to be standing near what would become Perp Walk Alley at the event, that is, the nearest path from where the protesters were standing to a door that opened directly to an outside sidewalk. For a while, Austin was sitting on the floor as Westgate security tried to get him out of the building. I didn't see how he got there - don't know if he tripped or was pushed or just sat down - but it appeared that Austin, a pretty hefty fellow, was doing a civil disobedience thing by staying on the ground while security struggled to remove him.
A video I took of the event - one of many by reporters and others standing nearby - picks up when two police officers either helped or lifted Austin off the ground. "Why you grabbing me?" Austin yelled as they held his arms. "Why you grabbing me? Why you grabbing me?"
"Get the hell out of here," one person in the crowd said. "Get your ass out of here," said another. "Take him out, take him out," said a third.
On Tuesday morning, Austin, who tweets under the name @IceColdPreacha, explained that Trump deserves all the disruption he gets. "If @realDonaldTrump truly cares about the safety of his rallies, he would change his tenor," Austin tweeted.
"Why was I upset?" Austin continued. "Racist are comfortable spouting nazi jargon why can't I yell?" Then: "What was I upset about? Muslims are being treated like other and not Americans."
At some point when Austin was still sitting on the ground and hotel security was trying to get him up, someone in the crowd said, "Light the motherf----- on fire." I didn't hear it in the chaos, but the words were caught clearly on a video taken by Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins.
After Austin, protester after protester repeated the scene, although mostly without his flair. Some walked calmly out, surrounded by security, but one woman was hell on wheels as she resisted, actually bringing down two burly Westgate guards on her way outside. In all, it was probably the most extensive disruption of the many disrupted rallies Trump has held.
The next morning, the protests had become the story. "Trump Rally Turns Ugly: 'Light That Mother------ On Fire!'" read one headline. "Trump Campaign Rally Erupts In Chaos And Ugly Confrontation" read another. "Trump Audience Member Yells Nazi Salute as Protester Removed From Las Vegas Rally" read a third. (Someone reportedly yelled "Sieg Heil!" in the fracas; I didn't hear it, but there are a lot of unusual people in Las Vegas, and I suppose anything is possible.)
Some more: "Call to Light Protester 'On Fire' at Trump Rally," "Trump Supporters Shout 'Sieg Heil,' 'Light Him on Fire' at Black Protester," and "'Light the mother------ on fire': Donald Trump's disturbing Las Vegas rally."
How was Trump? He seemed in good spirits, delivered his usual hour-plus speech and was in all respects Trump. But the event was a good example of how the growing protests at his rallies are changing the very nature of those events. Coverage focuses on protesters, security is in the spotlight, attendees are either angry at the interruption or enjoy the show and Trump develops a routine to deal with them from the podium.
The cumulative effect is that Trump's events come to be viewed from the protesters' perspective. How were they treated? Was security heavy-handed? Was the crowd ugly and racist? How did Trump react? There's less discussion from the perspective of the thousands of people who came to see Trump who were angry, or perhaps just annoyed, that a small but noisy group felt justified in messing up the event they've taken the trouble to attend. That's a story, too.
More from the campaign trail:
Guess you’re voting for Hillary.
Why don’t you read it before making a comment?
LOL.
So Byron York is blaming Trump for leftists? Shouldn’t he blame Obama?
I’ve never been much of a fan of anybody disrupting campaign speeches. If people come to hear Trump, Cruz, Sanders or Hillary they shouldn’t have to listen to somebody else yelling as though the crowd came to see them instead of the candidate.
The 3-4 protesters just spice up the rally, make supporters more fervent and give Trump more street cred. Its a good thing. Trump gets to trash the media and tell them to throw the protesters out at the same time. Love it. Keeps Donald on the front page. Well and your guy not so much. LOL!
NO!
Good grief.
Has knee-jerk emotion replaced reading for content?
I’m a fan of Cruz. Either he or Trump is OK by me.
I see this guy on Fox. He misleads you on the goof balls that tried to raise hell. They occupied a total combined time of 45 seconds. The Trump Crowd immediately yells “ trump Trump Trump” until these reprobates are ejected like drunk trouble makers from a bar. Really not worth mentioning but York does because he is an anti-Trump Roger Ailes buddy. I just turn the channel.
I don’t put it past Leftist activists to plant (like your picture) people in crowds to shout obscenities.
When you post during primary season most people don’t feel it’s necessary to read. We all know you hate Trump.
I agree.
York makes that point clear.
To me, these are civil rights issues - they are trying to stop Trump & his supporters from exercising their rights.
I agree. Fox has totally lost me - except for Greta.
Wait till these guys start laying into Teddy!
Byron York has had that insipid constipated look on his face since the day Trump announced. He loathes Trump as a vulgar toad not worthy.
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