Progressives Are Bending Over Backwards to Excuse Anti-Trump Violence

Police form a line to contain protesters outside a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

It keeps happening. In  Chicago, Kansas City, South Bend Janesville, AlbuquerqueCosta Mesa, and countless other cities, gaggles of paid, increasingly violent left-wing agitators are doing their best to shut down the rights of Trump supporters to peacefully assemble. In some cases, they are even physically attacking people. Earlier this year in Chicago (ground zero for left-wing agitation), the protesters actually succeeded in shutting down a rally. All across the nation, people’s constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly are being threatened by unhinged and out-of-control radicals.

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Last night in San Jose, yet another violent mob of far-left protesters assailed and assaulted Trump supporters as they were leaving a rally, in the latest example of this ongoing anti-democratic spectacle.

Trump supporters were assaulted and even pelted with eggs when they left a San Jose rally for the presumptive Republican nominee.

The crowd also stole Trump merchandise and set it on fire, and they yelled accusations of racism at Trump’s backers.

One Trump supporter told a news report that he had his Trump sign stolen and was then sucker-punched.

Some members of the media characterized the incidents as “fights.” These weren’t fights; they were violent assaults. In the photograph below, a terrified young guy is running for his life with the mob in close pursuit.

This is what passes for political engagement in 2016 America:

Protesters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump chase a man leaving a Trump campaign rally on Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate's rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg and Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Protesters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump chase a man leaving a Trump campaign rally on Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate’s rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg and Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

There should be a national uproar about what is going on at these Trump rallies. It’s not like the media doesn’t know how to push a narrative about dangerous political mobs.

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Remember how in the fall of 2008 the Secret Service was called in to investigate an incident in which one person may have yelled “kill him!” at a McCain/Palin rally? The Secret Service eventually found no basis for the charge, but not before the supposed atrocity had been splashed across the front pages of American newspapers as a chilling reminder a few weeks before the election of how “dangerous and sick” Republicans can be.

Remember how President Obama’s praetorian-guard media for years smeared the genuinely peaceful, orderly and law-abiding tea party demonstrators, calling them “anarchists” and “terrorists” because they held up signs the media didn’t like?

Remember how police in riot gear were called in to protect the president from the  geriatric protesters demonstrating outside of an Obama event in Quincy, Indiana, in 2010?

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Those “Tea Party Golden Girls” were holding signs that read “Give Us Liberty Not Debt” and Gadsden flags that said “Don’t Tread On Me.” They chanted “USA! USA!” and sang patriotic songs. These people weren’t “mostly peaceful” — a hedge the media likes to use to excuse violence at left-wing protests. The Quincy protesters were 100% peaceful and more likely to hand out home-baked cookies than throw eggs at anyone.

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As Ace of Spades said at the time, “There are privileged points of view and unprivileged points of view. And the privileged speakers get to have riots, and the unprivileged get the threat of having their heads busted in for daring to wave a flag.”

Six years later, Black Lives Matter, La Raza, and various other Soros-funded  front groups that violently disrupt-right wing events get the privileged kid-glove treatment from most of the media, with some openly encouraging it.

Emmet Rensin, an editor at Vox, wrote on Twitter: “If Trump comes to your town, start a riot.” He later said, “Property destruction is not violence.” Which, coincidentally, is the same view held by former domestic terrorist and longtime Obama pal Bill Ayers.

“What I did was some destruction of property to issue a scream and cry against an illegal war in which 6,000 people a week are being killed,” Ayers said during an interview in 2013 after being compared to the Boston bombers. He conveniently forgot to mention how three of his comrades were killed when a nail bomb they were making in a Greenwich Village townhouse blew up. The bomb was intended to be used at a dance at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey.

“Destroying property is legitimate,” Rensin declared on Twitter. “Shouting down is legitimate. Disruption of all events is legitimate.” To show his “peaceful” side, he added, “Murder isn’t.”

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An MSNBC commentator described the anti-Trump protesters as “not extremely violent” — as opposed to sort-of violent, or kinda violent — and noted that “there have been multiple assaults.” So not too bad. Not extreme anyway, like if someone yelled something mean or held up a Gadsden flag.

As seen in the video above, some members of the media asked the Trump supporters who were assaulted what they did to provoke the attack. “You didn’t say anything to anybody and were just walking out?” a reporter eagerly asked the guy who was left bleeding after one of the agitators clobbered him on the side of his head. “I was just coming out with my Trump sign and he grabbed my Trump sign and started following me, calling me a racist and stuff,” he answered.

“You didn’t say anything to provoke them?” another reporter persisted. “I said, ‘yeah Trump, Trump!'” the man replied.

So there you go. He had it coming. So did the woman who was egged in the face, according to sports anchor Paul Cicala. “She has to be careful egging them on or she sets herself up for that,” Cicala said on Twitter. He said she was “taunting protesters” by pointing to her provocative Trump t-shirt. Totally had it coming.

A woman wipes egg off her face after being pursued by protesters while leaving Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign rally on Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate's rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg and Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A woman wipes egg off her face after being pursued by protesters while leaving Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate’s rally in San Jose on Thursday night. A dozen or more people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg and Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

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According to the mayor of San Jose, the fault for the violence falls on Donald Trump himself, for provocatively holding rallies in our nation’s cities while campaigning for president.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D.) cast blame on Donald Trump for violence by anti-Trump protesters outside his rally Thursday night, telling the Associated Press that he “needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign.”

Liccardo, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, lauded the work of the local police, but he said Trump’s presence in some cities served only to ignite anger.

I’m sure he would have felt the same way if those Quincy Golden Girls had egged Obama’s motorcade and assaulted his supporters when he provocatively came to town.

The left is up to its old tricks and the media is happy to go along, as usual. But 2016 isn’t a usual year in American politics and their efforts may not be having the desired effect. In fact, it’s a safe bet that every one of these astroturfed protests is creating thousands of new Trump supporters who have had it with the left’s Alinskyite tricks and the media’s sickening double standard.

 

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