Saturday, March 12, 2016

Protesters failed to put their best foot forward

Brown, Protesters can’t blame Trump crowd for this ugliness

Demonstrators celebrate after it was announced that a rally with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the University of Illinois at Chicago would be postponed on March 11, 2016 in Chicago (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
I haven’t figured out quite yet how anybody is going to beat Donald Trump, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.

The protesters who caused Trump to cancel his Friday night rally at the UIC Pavilion erupted in elation at the announcement and took to the arena floor to celebrate.

I’m not sure what they were celebrating.

You can’t shut up Trump by shouting him down. Maybe for an hour. But his chance to speak

is never further away than the next microphone.

As this campaign has shown, hating on Trump’s hate only makes him stronger and only makes his supporters more resolute.

“This makes me want to vote for him more,” said 19-year-old Dalton Thompson, a Southern Illinois University student from Geneva.

Thompson was just one of probably 5,000-6,000 Trump backers who looked on glumly and angrily in the aftermath of the surprise cancellation.

“We’re not backing down. We want to make America great again,” said his friend, A.J. Siddiqui, a 21-year-old Muslim from St. Charles.

Trump will take those sentiments and magnify them a million-fold to his national audience, which will only feed off him being mistreated in Barack Obama’s hometown while Rahm Emanuel’s police stood watch.

Trump’s rise has reminded me of some long-ago Star Trek episode where the beast gained strength through the negative energy expended by those trying to kill it.

There was a lot of negative energy being expended inside and outside the UIC Pavilion.

To be clear, I’m glad people came out to protest Trump. I was hoping for it.

But as I watched an elderly man with a walker trying in vain to return to his car because idiots were running wild through the parking garage where many of Trump’s fans parked their cars, I was ashamed.

“This is what free speech looks like!” shouted a leader of the protesters on his megaphone while the old man asked the police if it was safe yet to get to his car.

I hope this isn’t what free speech looks like.

Look, Donald Trump has no business being president, and I think his supporters are misguided at best. But take that with a grain of salt because I am compromised. My wife is on Sheriff Tom Dart's payroll. 

But they weren’t the ugly ones on this night.

I’m not 100 percent sure it was necessary for Trump to postpone the event, but it was probably wise given the outburst after the cancellation announcement.

From the moment I arrived at the Pavilion 90 minutes before the scheduled start, it was evident protesters had obtained tickets to the event and were planning to enter the arena.

When one of the protesters was forcibly removed by police, other protesters began to chant, “Let him stay,” revealing a larger contingent. But they were shouted down by chants of “We love Trump.”

After that another dozen or so were removed one at a time for infractions that were unclear from the press bullpen. At that point, I was still on their side.

By and large, I thought things were under control as long as the group didn’t react en masse when Trump arrived.

If they had, however, it could have got ugly real fast, and judging by the aftermath, that’s a real possibility.

Many of those who were celebrating on the arena floor were shouting “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” and taunting Trump’s supporters as they tore up Trump signs.

Sanders should disavow them and offer a lesson in the proper exercise of free speech.

Outside, the protest leader was still on his bullhorn.

“Who won?” he asked.

“We won!” came the chant from the hundreds still massed in the street.

I don’t think so.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous3/12/2016

    DISGUSTING

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  2. Anonymous3/12/2016

    I have posted here in the past defending Trump but also expressing my candidate of choice to be Cruz. Last night I changed my mind and will vote for Trump in the primary Tuesday. Honest to God. I have to think I am not alone in feeling this way after seeing this outrageous act of anti democracy in action. Make no mistake that this was coordinated by the usual suspects - black lives matter, Democrat-Union thugs, liberal media, and the various web of Socialist-Communist activists in the region. It made me sick to see college students behaving like the Nazi Brown Shirts working to HALT free speech. If this isn't clear to you, then you are now part of the ugly, mentally unstable mob.

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  3. Anonymous3/12/2016

    Sort of like when the white Russians (Bolsheviks) took over Russia.

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  4. Anonymous3/12/2016

    We've seen this before in Germany in the late 20's early 30's brown shirted thugs (BLM) disrupting political rallies of their opponents. The lefts playbook never gets old.

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  5. Anonymous3/12/2016

    Now they are Bernie Supporters, a few months ago they were Black Lies Matters and Occupy Wall Streeters, They were all funded by George Soros and Move on.ORG. They are the lazy,and spoiled of the lazy and spoiled. Un-hirable.

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  6. Anonymous3/12/2016

    TRUMP SHOULD HAVE CALLED HIS RALLY " A JOB FAIR "....AND NONE OF THOSE IDIOTS WOULD HAVE SHOWED UP

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  7. Anonymous3/13/2016

    George Soros funds Blaclk Lives Matter and Illinois Coalition for Immigrant Rights funded ,in part, by Obama administration. Both were there and funded others to disrupt. BLM responsible for the problems at University of Missouri as well. Trust me,more to come. Right out of the Alinsk/Marxist playbook. My guess this will further the Trump cause
    and beltway insiders of both parties know it. Hilary toast my sources tell me and look for something this week related to Federal judge Sullivan's
    proceedings in DC.

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