Anti-Trump demonstrators may get Trump elected president.
This post is about Donald Trump, and the demonstrators he is getting at his events. The intent of this blog is to report on what I see myself, up close. I have seen zero opposition to Trump in two events I attended in New Hampshire, one in Nevada, and one in South Carolina. But that was then. Since then violence has been the media focus of events.
But now demonstrations are beginning to happen at Tump events. I just watched a Trump event in Chicago get cancelled because of demonstrators.
This is a gift for Trump, another big media win for Trump. First, some history: I was standing on the Boston Common in October 1968, watching George Wallace taunt demonstrators. The shouting and chanting made George Wallace look like the victim and put George Wallace on the side of law, order, responsibility, and the police. He was the speaker trying to exercise his right to speak over the shouts of college kids.
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| No protesters or opposition at the Tea Party Convention 3 weeks ago |
The demonstrations taking place are a gift to Trump. They underscore his message of resentment over a disorderly or overprivileged group. Wallace knew those scruffy college kids were winning him votes and it is happening again for Trump. Right now on TV I am watching scruffy college kids, kids privileged enough to spend an evening carrying signs and interrupting a political rally rather than working in some part time job to meet college expenses. Live, on TV as I type this, I am watching a black man on the screen pushing against a policeman trying to subdue him. The story just cut away from a young woman bragging that they had shut down the event.
Trump's response is to condemn the disorder. He is the bold, no nonsense authoritarian leader. The protesters look agitated but not disciplined. They are disrupting the event, not simple protesting it, and they are creating a dangerous situation. Pro-Trump demonstrators are holding up American flags. Trump's announcement is that he is calling off the demonstration at the urging of law enforcement. "Go in peace," Trump says.
Trump wins another media cycle. More important, CNN is referring to the event as "total anarchy". Trump is positioned as the enemy of total anarchy, exactly the place one would expect the Commander in Chief to be. An authoritarian leader is unnecessary and unwelcome in times of peace, but in times of anarchy a strong leader is what people seek.
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| Police at University Hall at Harvard 1969 |
Below, for your interest, I show part of the article in the Harvard Crimson published the day after the George Wallace event.
From the Harvard Crimson, October 1968: George C. Wallace arrived in Boston yesterday to face the most vociferously unfriendly crowd of his presidential campaign. The former Alabama governor, who spent about fours here before flying to Seranton, Pa. last night, was interrupted repeatedly by thousands of shouting demonstrators as he tried to address a rally in Boston Common yesterday afternoon.
An estimated 20,000 people turned out for the Wallace rally at the Common, but it soon became evident that a very large part of the crowd--probably more than half--had come to vent their disapproval of Wallace and his campaign. As the candidate began to speak, he was greeted by loud chants of "Peace!" and "Go home!" and by dozens of anti-Wallace signs.
2 comments:
Trump Protesters May Become the New "Hard Hats"
I agree with UpClose that nothing could help Trump more at this point than to have protesters intentionally disrupting his rallies. Fueled by a new flavor-of-the-day mainstream media story about Trump rallies featuring sporadic violence that could one day become mass violence, the protesters made it happen one news cycle later. They knew they could perform for the press with rough-ups on the venue floors and in the bleachers. Self-fulfilling anti-Trump media prophecy, as it were. The essence of the protesters is to silence speech, not promote it.
The Trump protesters tonight are one step away from being the rebirth of the "hard hats" in 1969-70, a group who came to disrupt the speech of a mass anti-establishment movement. Like Trump or hate him, Time Magazine got it right that his is a movement seeking to overthrow what it views as an oppressive power structure. The protester chaos tonight in Chicago was just short of the required violence level needed to be like the hard hat rioters. "The Hard Hat Riot of 1970", as Wikipedia describes it, happened in New York City as hundreds of establishment construction workers attacked Vietnam protesters wanting to overturn the political and governmental order. Indeed, the hard hats had been organized by the New York State AFL-CIO, aptly enough at the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Hat_Riot.
Obama and Hillary are now powerful visible icons of a political establishment founded in a new global order. Hillary overtly seeks a third Obama term, with its signature Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, pro-immigration policies, and anti-police Black Lives Matter racial mantras. Trump and his supporters are a White nativist pro-police movement intent on upending that globalist establishment. The "protesters", a dignified label they will lose at a particular lawlessness threshold, seek to stop Trump from speaking, and deliberately obstruct the speech and association rights of his supporters. The protesters are on the verge of becoming the new hard hats, people who are alarmed and afraid they cannot prevail at the ballot box. And the tactics they are using will likely doom them at exactly that spot-- the ballot box.
Trump Says "They didn't shut down my rally, it is now on global television"
With stunning acumen over using the media, Trump in an interview with Greta Van Sustern answered her question on how he felt about his rally being shut down basically with this: "They did not shut it down, it is happening now inside and outside the arena on worldwide television and the debate is whether protesters should be able to use force to silence voices who want change. These protesters have tried to take away free speech from 25,000 people tonight". He's right, his rally was projected at 1000 times the size it would have without the protesters.
In fact, none of the media actually supports the protesters, but at best suggests various blame allocations for their disruptive and lawless tactics. The media commentary on the chaos varies ideologically between media outlets, from CNN and NYT who lump protesters and Trump rally attendees as equally at fault, to Fox which clearly condemns protesters who intentionally shut down the rally. However, even on Fox there is a difference between commentators, with Greta Van Sustern initially being aghast at the protesters' conduct, to Trump enemy Megyn Kelly suggesting Trump has caused the chaos. Second most notable to Van Sustern's interview with Trump was the Kelly interview with Marco Rubio who suggested that these are "professional protesters", some of them are "probably paid", but they are all acting on the 7 year long racially divisive messages from President Obama. http://goo.gl/cYqYjo. However, later during Van Sustern's interview with Trump, she took up the Kelly blame-Trump approach, but Trump completely handled her with calm and rational argument over the 1 to 100 protester to supporter ratio, protecting the First Amendment, and voter anger. http://goo.gl/cYqYjo. If Republican voters are most influenced by Fox than CNN, then the Chicago chaos is likely to be a total victory for Trump. This gives all new meaning to his line that "I love protesters, they make the cameras turn to see the size of my crowds". Tonight his protesters drew the worldwide media to his campaign, with the debate being not his policies, but the efforts to silence him and his supporters. Trump wins again.
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