The balance of the comments do not meet the criteria of over-the-line. I found a nice summary of all his quotes related to violence, here.
One consistent behavior of the left is that they create a crisis, then offer to solve it, all the while blaming the victim.
So it goes with Donald Trump and his rallies. The group #BlackLiesMatter has stormed his rallies, fighting with his supporters in Chicago, and disrupting other events, and even had a lone wolf Thomas Dimassimo rush Trump on his podium. Thank the Good Lord the Secret Service was prepared and protected him quickly with their bodies, for who knows how this might have otherwise played out.
In response, the Propaganda Ministry (formerly and inaccurately known as the American News Media) blamed Trump for the attacks on him. This is the political equivalent of blaming the rape victim. They are claiming that Donald Trump caused the attacks with 'divisive and inflammatory' rhetoric.
Note, also, that the meme circulated last weekend was that Trump is just like Hitler. Yet, who is really acting like the Nazis? It is those in the #BlackLiesMatter movement, and others who would shut down Trump's rallies. In the 1920's and 1930's, the Sturmabteilung (also known as Brownshirts) stormed the rallies of their political opponents with violence and disruption. It turns out that those who falsely accused Trump of Nazism, adopted every single tactic of the Nazis themselves.
Let us momentarily ignore the hideous accusation that "Donald Trump deserved it, for he dresses like a SLUT!” Let us analyze his "divisive and inflammatory" rhetoric. I will start with the most egregious, then work down to the least:
- On Feb 23: “Here’s a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else, when we’re talking. The guards are very gentle with him. He’s walking out, like, big high-fives, smiling, laughing, I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya. Look, see, he’s smiling. See, he’s having a good time. You know what I hate? There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we’re not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” ---- Now, to my mind, this is, in part, unacceptable on Donald Trump's part. I agree with the fact that if the protester is swinging, that we should be able to defend ourselves, but Trump needs to knock it off with the proactive-punch talk.
- Nov. 22, 2015: Trump responded to an incident in which a protester was roughed up by people at a rally. "Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing," Trump said. "I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble." --- Closer to the edge than I would prefer. Perhaps he needed to back off on the 'should be roughed up' stuff, and instead, talk about the inevitable consequences of disrupting a rally.
- On Feb. 1, Security team told Trump that someone in the audience was preparing to throw tomatoes. "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them," he said. "Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees." ---- Frankly, this one is perfectly justified. When someone is preparing to assault a Presidential candidate by any means, the Secret Service is prepared to use deadly force. The fact that he asked the audience to assist the SS in stopping an assault is actually a very valid comment.
- There are numerous other examples, at least five, of Trump saying that protesters who commit violence risk a beat-down of their own. I cannot fault any of these.
- He wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico. This is not inflammatory, this is sensible. It will stop many repeat-offender Mexican criminals and Muslim terrorists from entering our country, and may even slow the flow of narcotics into America.
- He wants to deport illegal aliens. Again, nothing inflammatory here, just a very sensible response to those who wish to flood our country with left-leaning citizens from several foreign countries who undercut American wages.
- He wants to surveil the most extreme of American mosques. How is this something an American can possibly object to? Mosques abroad are hotbeds of terror and hatred of Western values. Now they are in our country, and somehow we must ignore them?
And to blame Trump for the violence, when others are initiating it upon him and his supporters (via trespass, infiltration, intentional disruption, and actual violence of their own) is not acceptable at all. This is nothing short of saying that "Trump dresses like a SLUT! He DESERVES his rape."
This is the most base and vile possible argument. People who advance this heinous argument must be called out and publically shamed for their comments. In only the first example, Trump *was* speaking in an objectionable way. America traditionally does not shut down objectionable speech. America traditionally meets such speech with more speech.
I was quite disappointed to see Ted Cruz jump aboard this argument, and it gives me pause per his true allegiances and motivations. He presented the obligatory condemnation of the attackers, and then used the word 'but', and went on to defame Donald Trump. I hold that most of the time that people say "this, BUT that", they deny their first clause, and are actually solely advocating their second clause. Cruz went right to the most base of all possible arguments. He agrees: "Trump deserves his rape! He dresses like a SLUT!"
This argument cannot stand, and we must call out anyone who advocated this "blame the victim" mentality.
