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There’s an air of menace about this campaign
Washington Post ^ | March 17, 2016 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 03/17/2016 5:18:43 PM PDT by TroutStalker

By international and historical standards, political violence is exceedingly rare in the United States. The last serious outburst was 1968 with its bloody Democratic-convention riots. By that standard, 2016 is, as yet, tame. It may not remain so.

The political thuggery that shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago last week may just be a harbinger. It would be nice, therefore, if we could think straight about cause and effect.

The immediate conventional wisdom was to blame the disturbance on the “toxic environment” created by Trump. Nonsense. This was an act of deliberate sabotage created by a totalitarian left that specializes in the intimidation and silencing of political opponents.

Its pedigree goes back to early-20th-century fascism and communism. Its more recent incarnation has been developed on college campuses, where for years leftists have been taunting, disrupting and ultimately shutting down and shutting out conservative speakers of every stripe — long before Donald Trump.

The Chicago shutdown was a planned attack on free speech and free assembly.

*

Given the people, the money and the groups (including MoveOn.org) behind Chicago, it is likely to be replicated, constituting a serious threat to a civilized politics. But there’s a second, quite separate form of thuggery threatening the 2016 campaign — a leading candidate who, with a wink and a nod (and sometimes less subtlety), is stoking anger and encouraging violence.

This must be distinguished from what happened in Chicago, where Trump was the victim and for which he is not responsible. But he is responsible for saying of a protester at his rally in Las Vegas that “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that . . . ? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: charleskrauthammer; krauthammer
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1 posted on 03/17/2016 5:18:43 PM PDT by TroutStalker
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To: TroutStalker
Trump was the victim and for which he is not responsible. But he is responsible ...

Uh huh. Try to sound fair. Try to sound balanced. You suck at it.

2 posted on 03/17/2016 5:21:31 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (I don't know what Claire Wolfe is thinking, but I know what I'm thinking.)
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To: TroutStalker

The Kraut strikes again.


3 posted on 03/17/2016 5:21:39 PM PDT by LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea . . . Eventually" (Hendrix))
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To: TroutStalker

Keep going, Charles. You’re heading in the right direction at last, but you’re not there yet.


4 posted on 03/17/2016 5:23:07 PM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: TroutStalker

“The last serious outburst was 1968 with its bloody Democratic-convention riots. “

Quite curiously, the bloody 1968 Dem-Convention Rioters now run the country.


5 posted on 03/17/2016 5:29:42 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: TroutStalker

Trump was responding to being attacked.

The Left is attacking to silence free speech dissent against the Left.

Anyone claiming these positions are equal is taking the same position as anti-gunners wanting to criminalize self-defense.


6 posted on 03/17/2016 5:29:52 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: TroutStalker

Change your diaper Kraut....you POS Ogabe voter.


7 posted on 03/17/2016 5:29:59 PM PDT by Electric Graffiti (DEPORT OBOLA VOTERS)
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To: TroutStalker

There is an air of menace . . . and I approve. It’s time to solve the festering problems. If it gets ugly, then it gets ugly.


8 posted on 03/17/2016 5:30:50 PM PDT by Pollster1 ("A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to meand over an is worthless." - Scalia)
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To: TroutStalker

Inconvenient fact, Chuck. The old guy who slugged the protester was assaulted by the protester. Waving the middle finger in the old man’s face was assault.
Self defense.


9 posted on 03/17/2016 5:32:11 PM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
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To: TroutStalker

The fact that Rahm Emanuel has remained silent on the Friday night riots speaks volumes about what happened.


10 posted on 03/17/2016 5:32:35 PM PDT by MustKnowHistory
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To: TroutStalker

” But he is responsible for saying of a protester at his rally in Las Vegas that “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that...? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.””

Who here doesn’t think or say the same thing ?


11 posted on 03/17/2016 5:34:14 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: TroutStalker

I’ll just bet you feel menaced, Dr Smartypants!


12 posted on 03/17/2016 5:37:36 PM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: UCANSEE2

In the military, when a grunt says “that guy needs to die”. It means nothing.
When a general says it might just happen.

This is a lesson in leadership. Thinking something and saying it are two different things. The leader is, by definition, responsible for what they say.


13 posted on 03/17/2016 5:41:24 PM PDT by Outlaw76 (Conservative, Showman, Rino. Make your choice wisely.)
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To: TroutStalker

I thought you had the wrong paper there, but I guess Krauthammer is on our side sorta.


14 posted on 03/17/2016 5:41:35 PM PDT by Aliska ("No bank is too big to fail, and no executive is too powerful to jail." HRC 1/24/16)
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To: Pollster1

Trump paddles the snot-nosed punks who have been screaming and squalling and interrupting the adults’ conversation and sends them to bed without their suppers....and people wonder what is the appeal.


15 posted on 03/17/2016 5:42:41 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: TroutStalker

The effete rich college kids, the BLM thugs and especially the fourth estate fifth column all want to relive the last half of the 1960s. They’ve grown up listening to the stories from their grandparents about all the fun they had back then so the kids think that they are missing out on something.

I was there in the middle of all of it. It was not as advertised then and not at all as it is advertised today. Sure there was fun to be had but the dues were mighty heavy.


16 posted on 03/17/2016 5:43:00 PM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: ClearCase_guy

The old yabuttal: “ya..., but...”


17 posted on 03/17/2016 5:44:05 PM PDT by XEHRpa
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To: TroutStalker

Years of lawlessness at the highest levels of government
can result in civil unrest. Who knew!?!


18 posted on 03/17/2016 5:44:43 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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To: TroutStalker
“The last serious outburst was 1968 with its bloody Democratic-convention riots”

There is a lie in the first sentence.

There were violent attacks on the Republican conventions in 3004 in NYC and 2008 in Minnesota. There were attacks on recruiting stations and other violence during the Iraq War. There were the occupy movements with violent attacks vandalism and destruction of property.

There were the riots in NYC, Ferguson and Baltimore.

There were the bombings by the Weathermen and other groups. There was the Days of Rage in Chicago. There was the Bomb factory in Greenwich Village. The was the Brinks robbery in NY. There were the Bank Robberies committed by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

This entire article is just one lie after another. It is just a dishonest hit piece on Trump.

19 posted on 03/17/2016 5:45:45 PM PDT by detective
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To: Fred Hayek

You’ve gotta be quite a wimp to feel so threatened by a bird that you punch somebody.


20 posted on 03/17/2016 5:50:18 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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