Donald Trump Violence Quotes: Racism, Sexism, Nationalism, Fascism and Bullying
Does Donald Trump inspire and incite violence?
Is he a bully who condones and encourages violence? Does he engage in "hate
talk" that can lead to violence? Trump may claim otherwise, but as the
old saying goes, "the proof is in the pudding." This page contains
many Trump quotes that prove he is a lover, proponent, evangelist, and inciter of violence.
Here are some quick examples of Trump's propensity for violence:
Trump said repeatedly that he would order American soldiers to track down and
murder the wives and children of suspected terrorists.
Trump said repeatedly that he wants to bring back waterboarding and more extreme
forms of torture.
Trump has advocated using the US military to steal oil from Iraq and Venezuela,
two countries that pose no military threat to the US.
In fact, according to Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director of the FBI, Trump
said he wanted to go to war with Venezuela because "they have all that oil."
Trump has insisted, more than once, that the US should be able to use nukes
simply because Americans paid for them!
Trump has even refused to rule out using nukes in Europe!
Let me
begin by quoting an excerpt from a speech by
French President Emmanuel Macron that explains how Trump's brand of
inflammatory ultra-nationalism led to two World Wars and the Holocaust in the recent past. In
his speech Macron observed that "Patriotism is the exact opposite of
nationalism because nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying 'our interests
first, no matter what happens to others,' you erase the most precious thing a
nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great, and
that which is most important: its moral values. Now
the old demons are resurging, ready
to finish off their work of chaos and death. New ideologies manipulate religions and push a contagious obscurantism. Sometimes history threatens to
repeat its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we
had definitively settled with our ancestors' blood."
Here, Macron is clearly
warning Americans and the world that Trump and men like him are appealing to the
old demons of nationalism (the Nazis were ultra-nationalists), that they
manipulate religions (exit polls revealed that 80% of American evangelicals
voted for Trump) and that their obscurantism (i.e., lying) is contagious and can
spread like the plague. Thus, Trump can inspire violence around the world with
his tweets, and indeed we are seeing violence increase as white supremacists
threaten and massacre Jews in American synagogues while school children cower
beneath their desks and protesters are being manhandled and beaten by Trump's
brownshirts. What we once thought could never happen in the United States is
already happening, and it is very similar to what happened in Germany twice, the
second time with Hitler sounding very much like Trump does today.
Trump is putting the X back in Xmas by X-ing out refugee children and their
mothers. If baby Jesus and Mary showed up needing shelter, Trump wouldn't
provide them with even a lowly manger. Instead, he'd order American soldiers to
drive them back into the wilderness at gunpoint. Meanwhile, this is what the
eerie festivities at the White House looked like last year:
Trump Christmas.
The Top Ten Examples of Donald Trump's Violence and Bullying with Quotes
(10) Trump has repeatedly denied American protesters their constitutional rights to freedom of
speech, assembly and dissent; multiple protesters have sued
Trump after being manhandled and/or physically abused at his campaign events.
Peaceful protestors have been threatened, verbally abused, spat on, pepper-sprayed,
beaten up, sucker-punched and kicked by Trump
supporters. Slate has documented 20 different occurrences of violence
at Trump events, and that doesn't include violence that occurred outside the
venues in question. Trump even offered to pay the legal fees of anyone who would
"knock the hell" out of protesters who were merely exercising their
constitutional rights.
Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell
... I promise you I will pay for the legal fees! I promise! I promise!—Donald Trump
Get him out! Try not to hurt him. If you do, I'll defend you in court! Don't
worry about it!—Donald Trump
I love the old days! You know what they used to do to guys like that in a place
like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks!—Donald Trump
In the good old days this doesn't happen because they used to treat them very,
very rough!—Donald Trump
I'll beat the crap out of you!—Donald Trump, speaking to a protester
I'd like to punch him in the face!—Donald Trump
Maybe he should have been roughed up.—Donald Trump, after being told that a
Black Lives Matter activist had been kicked, punched and called the n-word
I don't know if I'll do the fighting myself or if other people will.—Donald
Trump (we're pretty sure Trump will leave the beatings of protesters to other
people)
You know, part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is
nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right?—Donald Trump
The audience hit back and that's what we need a little bit more
of.—Donald Trump, after being told that a black protester had been
sucker-punched
We've become weak!—Donald Trump, lamenting that people who exercise their
constitutional rights are not beaten up as they were in the "good old days"
NOTE: Snopes found violence-inciting statements above to be TRUE
(www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-incitement-violence)
(9) Trump has encouraged the police to be more brutal, even when handling
suspects who haven't been convicted of any crimes and might be innocent. So
throw out another basic American right: the right to be considered innocent
until found guilty after a fair trail. Quite obviously, the police shouldn't
harm people who are not resisting arrest because they might be innocent and
because it is up to a judge and jury to mete out punishment, if punishment is
warranted. Would you want the police to brutalize your loved ones on mere
suspicion, without a fair trial?
When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you
just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, "Please don't be too nice!"—Donald
Trump
When you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head you
know, the way you put their hand over [their head] ... I said, "You can take the
hand away, OK?"—Donald Trump
(8) Trump and his bodyguards were accused of using mob-like strong-arm tactics against the Rolling Stones and Steel Wheels tour producer
Michael Cohl, in 1989. Here is Cohl's account of what happened when Cohl tried
to get Trump to honor the contract he signed and stay away from the Stones'
concert in Atlantic City:
I notice the three shtarkers he's with, in trench coats, two of them are
putting on gloves and the other one is putting on brass knuckles. I go on the
walkie-talkie and I call for Jim Callahan, who was head of our security, and I
go, "Jim, I think I'm in a bit of trouble." And he says, "Just turn around." I
turn around. He's got 40 of the crew with tire irons and hockey sticks and
screwdrivers. [Trump and his thugs backed down and left with their tails between
their cowardly legs, once they saw that they were outnumbered.]
(7) Trump bullied an elderly woman, Vera Coking, by attempting to use eminent domain to steal
her house for a quarter of its value; fortunately the tiny widow stood up to
Trump's attempted robbery in court
and was able to keep her house.
"It is a classic case of a schoolyard bully growing up," said Clint Bolick,
who co-founded the legal institute that defended Coking in a 1990s lawsuit with
Trump. "He's a thug."
(6) Trump repeatedly bullies and insults the handicapped, women, Hispanics,
African-Americans, Jews and Muslims. And for more than a decade, he tried to
keep vets from street vending on ritzy Fifth Avenue.
Trump has called women "pigs," "dogs," "disgusting animals," "slobs,"
"bimbos," "gold diggers," "babies," "bitches" and other highly offensive names.
He has a long history of such remarks. If this concerns you, there is more
information at Donald Trump's War on Women.
(5) Trump was accused of rape by his first wife, Ivana, after he allegedly became enraged
by a botched scalp reduction procedure performed by a doctor she had recommended.
Trump has also been accused of kissing and groping women without their
permission. And he admitted groping women and other hyper-aggressive behavior in
his Access Hollywood taped interview with Billy Bush:
Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything [when you're a star].—Donald Trump
I did try to fuck her! I moved on her like a bitch!—Donald Trump
(4) Trump seems anxious to start torturing people, as he stridently called for waterboarding and
more extreme measures, even though experts have explained that torture is
counter-productive for information gathering.
Trump promised to bring back waterboarding and things "a hell of a lot
worse" than waterboarding.
Torture works. Ok, folks? You know, I have these guys [who say] "Torture
doesn't work!" Believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form. Some
people say it's not actually torture. Let's assume it is. But they asked me the
question, "What do you think of waterboarding?" Absolutely fine. But we should
go much stronger than waterboarding.—Donald Trump
When asked what he thinks about waterboarding, Trump answered: "I like
it a lot. I don't think it's tough enough." [Who likes torture, but
someone who is evil or mad?]
(3) Trump insisted multiple times that under his command American soldiers must become mass murderers of women and
children, by hunting down and "taking out" the families of terrorists for
purposes of "retribution."
The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families,
when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.—Donald Trump
(2) Trump wants Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia (the later home to Osama bin
Laden and most of the 9-11 attackers) to have nukes; but what happens if Saudi
Arabia experiences a coup like the recent one in Turkey?
Trump said he wasn't that worried about more countries getting nukes since
"It's not like, gee whiz, nobody has them!"
When Anderson Cooper asked Trump point-blank about Saudi Arabia having nuclear
weapons, Trump replied: "Saudi Arabia, absolutely!" Trump then explained his
Mafia-don-like reasoning: "They have to protect themselves or they have to pay
us!" In other words, the Saudis should pay the US "protection money" or they
should be allowed to develop nukes, even though the 9-11 attacks were carried
out by Saudis. What would have happened if Saudi Arabia had nukes on 9-11?
(1) Trump said that he won't rule out using nukes against ISIS, or in Europe, or
even against China
over trade disagreements! As president-elect Trump announced his
intentions to escalate the nuclear arms race. And while being briefed, Trump
repeatedly asked a nuclear weapons expert why they can't be used, since we
paid so much money for them!
Europe is a big place. I'm not going to take cards off the table.—Donald
Trump explaining that because Europe is "big" and hard to defend with
conventional weapons, he can't take the nuclear cards off the table and promise
that he won't blow millions of people to smithereens!
We're going to hit them and we're going to hit them hard. I'm talking about
a surgical strike on these ISIS stronghold cities using Trident missiles
[Trident missiles are nuclear weapons].—Donald Trump
Somebody hits us within ISIS [and] you wouldn`t fight back with a
nuke?—Donald Trump defending his idea of responding to terrorist attacks with
nuclear weapons even though ISIS is embedded in heavily populated civilian areas
and multitudes of innocent babies and their families would be slaughtered!
Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?—Donald Trump insisting
that because we make nukes we have to use them!
I'm never going to rule anything out.—Donald Trump explaining that he will
never rule out using nukes, or rape, or genocide, or even destroying the world!
Like a gang lord, Trump is only concerned about violence when the victims are
his homies. Mafia dons don't worry about crimes their "family" members commit.
Trump is the same way. He and his homies can grope women, separate babies with
darker skin from their mothers, deny LGBTs equality, and none of that
matters. But if any member of the gang suffers the slightest insult or injury,
Trump leaps like a snarling lion to his defense (as with judges Roy Moore and
Brett Kavanaugh). In other words, Trump is a tribalist. His tribe consists of
entitled white Christian alpha males who consider themselves "superior" to
everyone else, except that there is nothing remotely Christian about their
behavior. They apparently believe Jesus Christ was a blue-eyed, auburn-haired
Rambo who despised refugees. But according to the Gospel accounts, Jesus and his
family were refugees at the time he was born. There was famously "no room" for
Joseph and Mary, so their baby boy was born in a lowly manger, surrounded by
barnyard animals. Thus it seems very unlikely that Jesus would agree that the
world should turn its back on refugees, or that people who adopt his name by
calling themselves Christians should support someone like Trump, who would have
barred the Holy Family from entering the United States! If you are a Christian
and this concerns you, you may want to read this page:
Is Donald Trump a Christian?
I punched my music teacher because I didn't think he knew anything about
music and I almost got expelled.—Donald Trump
BREAKING NEWS: Trump's response to a caravan of
Honduran refugees was to call out thousands of heavily armed American soldiers
to "defend" the border. Apparently, Trump prefers to take away the Statue of
Liberty's torch and replace it with an automatic weapon pointed at children and
their mothers. Why is Trump so ruthless when the people in question have darker
skin, even children? Because Trump is a racist, as confirmed by his personal
lawyer and "fixer," Michael Cohen. In an interview with Vanity Fair,
Cohen recalled four times that Trump made denigrating comments about black
people. CNN has since confirmed that the Vanity Fair quotes are
accurate. When Cohen told Trump that the turnout for one of his 2016 campaign
rallies "looked vanilla on television," Trump responded, "That's because black
people are too stupid to vote for me!" Cohen claimed that when South African
leader Nelson Mandela died, Trump remarked, "Name one country run by a black
person that's not a shithole!" and then he added, "Name one city!" Cohen said
that when he and Trump were traveling to Chicago and "drove through what looked
like a rougher neighborhood" Trump said that "only the blacks could live like
this." Cohen also claimed that Trump said "there's no way'" he could let an
African-American contestant from season one of "The Apprentice" be the reality
show's winner.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a
plan to kill everyone you meet." This is a quote by James Mattis, currently
Trump's Secretary of Defense! People have been wearing t-shirts with this
assassin-like advice at Trump rallies. So is it merely coincidence that a Trump
supporter recently mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats, including former
President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a
series of assassination attempts? No, it was surely no coincidence. This is the
kind of rabid violence that Trump's rabid rhetoric inspires. And it's getting
worse. Shortly thereafter a man entered a Pittsburg synagogue and slaughtered 11
people, screaming "All Jews must die!" Unsurprisingly, many racists who despise
people with darker skin also despise Jews. Suddenly, anyone who is slightly
different from the norm in any way is in danger, thanks to Trump, just as people
who were slightly different were in danger in Nazi Germany, thanks to Hitler. We
need to remember that the Nazis were ultra-nationalists who didn't limit
themselves to despising small categories of other people. They hated, despised,
raged against and eventually murdered millions of human beings: Jews, Gypsies,
Slavs, Russians, unionists, intellectuals, liberals, Jehovah's Witnesses,
homosexuals, and people with mental and physical handicaps. In his famous
Holocaust poem "First They Came for the
Jews" the German pastor Martin Niemöller made the point that Hitler and the
Nazis started with the Jews but by no means stopped there. It's an important
poem that everyone should read and carefully consider, as under Trump the United
States seems to be heading down the same dark path. The poem can be read by
clicking the hyperlinked title, along with my poem "First
They Came for the Muslims" which I wrote after Trump announced that he was
going to run for president. My poem appears after Niemöller's on the same page.
Any guy who can do a body slam, he's my guy!—Donald Trump
Trump praised Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte, a Republican who assaulted Guardian journalist Ben Jacobs by
body-slamming him to the ground. Trump crowed, "Any guy who can do a body slam
... he's my guy!" to cheers and laughter at a rally in Missoula, Montana.
According to Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna, who witnessed the
incident, "Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him
into the ground," then "began punching the man" and "yelling something to the
effect of 'I'm sick and tired of this!'" Acuna added that Jacobs was not showing
any physical aggression before the altercation. Following the incident, Jacobs
went to the hospital for x-rays. Gianforte was later convicted of misdemeanor
assault. Needless to say, the President of the United States should not be
encouraging physical violence against people who are just asking questions, or
anyone else who hasn't done anything to harm anyone else.
I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you!—Donald Trump, speaking
about a peaceful protester who was smiling and laughing as he was escorted away
from a Trump rally after exercising his freedom of speech and dissent as an
American citizen
After mail bombs were sent to CNN and top Democrats, including Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton, Trump blamed the victims rather than the bomber! Footage has
emerged of suspected MAGA bomber Cesar Sayoc filming himself in a Make America
Great Again hat while attending a Donald Trump rally. Who
inspired men like Sayoc to try to kill reporters and Democrats? Was it not Trump
himself, when he called the media "enemies of the people" and dispensers of
"fake news"? Yet who has created more fake news than Trump? He lies to the world
on a daily basis. And, as Politico pointed out, Trump now decries
political violence after years of personally stoking it. According to
Politico, Trump "has a reckless penchant for, at a minimum, celebrating
violence against his enemies — and, at worst, inciting it [when he] regularly
whips his supporters into a frenzy by mocking his critics and political
opponents." Leading Democrats pointed out that Trump's condemnations of the
attacks "ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of
violence."
Trump has radicalized ICE, Homeland Security, U. S. Customs and the Border
Patrol to the point that babies have been ripped from their mothers' breasts and
separated from their families. Apparently this is how Trump intends to "make
America great again," by waging a war on babies and their mothers. Is this what
the Statue of Liberty stands for?
Trump defended male rapists everywhere by insinuating that every raped woman who
doesn't come forward immediately is a liar, when he tweeted this about
Christine Blasey Ford: "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford
was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law
Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she
bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!"
In the wake of the Parkland school massacre,
after mocking other politicians for being afraid of the NRA, it didn't take
Trump long to succumb to fear and support the NRA rather than the students who
managed to survive.
"Women's bodies are more regulated than guns in America."—Kyra Parrow
Trump warned that there would be violence if Democrats won control of Congress during the 2018 elections.
Trump told the U.N. that he is ready to "totally
destroy" North Korea, a nation of 25 million souls! He then backed up his
warmongering words by ordering B-1 bombers to fly close to North Korea, in a
blatant act of intimidation. Trump also threatened Iran, Syria, Venezuela and
Cuba. The world has become much more dangerous with Trump commanding the
American military and nuclear codes. Later, it was revealed that Trump wanted to
increase US nuclear armaments "tenfold," which according to Popular
Mechanics would mean adding more than 50,000 nukes at a cost of $15
trillion, or four times the current federal budget! What sort
of goon spends so much money on weapons that can never be used ... or would
Trump actually use them?
At a rally in Cincinnati, Trump called his cabinet a collection of the "greatest killers you've ever seen." Only Trump could
combine the words "greatest" and "killers" and make it sound like a good thing.
The neo-CONS have their man in
Trump, who just signaled his readiness to start a nuclear war by signing an
executive order that allows retired B-1 bomber pilots to be reactivated. "The
war is morphing," fervent war hawk Lindsey Graham explained, "You're going to
see more actions in Africa, not less. You're going to see more aggression by the
United States toward our enemies, not less. You're going to have decisions made
not in the White House but out in the field. And I support that entire
construct." No wonder another fervent war hawk, John McCain, wants a
LOT more money for the military in
the federal budget. All those new wars, including nuclear wars, are going to be
VERY expensive. But according to
the neo-cons we can't afford to take care of children, the elderly, the sick and
the poor. So what are we protecting? The interests of rich white warmongers
like Trump, quite obviously. "Blessed are the peacemakers" is a concept
alien to Trump and the neo-cons, who claim to be Christians but always do the
opposite of what Jesus Christ would do. Ditto for helping disadvantaged people,
especially those with darker skin. The Bible says a man cannot serve God and
Mammon (money), because he will love one and hate the other. Trump obviously
loves and worships Mammon, because he gold-plates his freakin' toilets. He
spends most of his time on golf vacations that are costing taxpayers millions of
dollars per trip, and in between rounds he finds time to rob the poor of their
healthcare in order to fund his golf excursions and wars. Then he can't even
bother to learn a soldier's name before calling his grief-stricken widow!
Trump's war on women and their rights continues unabated. Trump is aptly named.
Should a rich white man's religious beliefs "trump" a working woman's? Allowing
a woman's boss to decide whether she can obtain free contraceptives is not
"religious liberty," but religious tyranny. What if the roles were reversed and
a Muslim boss wanted to force his religious beliefs on female employees? Then
the right-wing advocates of "religious liberty" would scream bloody murder. The
same people who want Bibles and prayers to Jehovah in public schools would have
nervous breakdowns if Korans and prayers to Allah were being allowed. Such
blatant hypocrisy is hard to swallow, especially when the founder of
Christianity saved all his sternest criticism for the religious hypocrites of
his day. My religious beliefs should obviously not trump yours. Forcing women to
have babies they don't want and can't afford is an extreme form of violence.
"I have no reaction. The mayor's living on a cot, and I hope the President has a
good day of golf." This was the response of Russel Honoré, the retired general
appointed by Bush to take over the federal response to Katrina in 2005, to
Trump's attacks on San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz after she pointed out that
there was no "good news story" because her people were suffering and dying. (We
think the general's observation is especially worth copying and pasting, sharing and tweeting.)
Aftermath
Carmen Yulín Cruz is a hero.
Trump is a zero.
―Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"
If you're a Christian who supports Trump, the following
facts should make you reconsider: American neo-Nazis who chant "Hail Trump!"
just as their German predecessors once chanted "Heil Hitler!" are virulently
anti-Jewish. The Charlottesville neo-Nazis were "obsessed" with Jews, according
to reporters. On their antisemitic websites they posted calls to
burn a local synagogue, the
Congregation Beth Israel. They stationed men in fatigues with semi-automatic
weapons across the street from the synagogue as Jews prayed inside. These
neo-Nazis love Trump. They praise Trump. They worship Trump with cries of
"Hail!" which echo the German "Heil!" AND THEY WANT
TO BURN SYNAGOGUES TO THE GROUND. Trump did his best to defend the neo-Nazis by saying that both
sides were to blame. That's like saying Jews would have been to blame if they
had resisted what the Nazis did to them during the Holocaust. That's like saying
that our heroic soldiers who fought and died in World War II to end the Nazi
menace were "just as guilty" as Hitler and his goons. It is obviously
not wrong to oppose Nazis. In WWII,
around 70 million people died because of the Nazi brand of fascism. It would be
either evil or foolish not to oppose Nazis wherever we find them. And that makes
Trump either evil or very, very foolish, in my book. Most Americans claim to be
Christians. Should Christians support
someone who supports and defends Nazis? What would Jesus Christ have said about
Trump? Surely we all know the answer.
Why is Trump supporting Nazis? Why is he expelling the DREAMers, after claiming
to "love" them? Would you toss one child out on the streets, much less hundreds
of thousands? What do you think Jesus would do, if you claim to be a Christian?
Would Jesus act like Trump? Of course not!
Here is how Trump described Hurricane Harvey as it wreaked havoc on Texas: "...
EPIC! ... HISTORIC! ... THE BIGGEST EVER! ..." Trump then explained that he
announced his pardon of Joe Arpaio during the hurricane because "I assumed the
ratings would be far higher than they would be normally." The man has no shame.
He is tone deaf to how horrible he sounds. And who can doubt that while Texans
try to recover from the loss of their houses, Trump will be talking about what a
"dump" the White House is, and vacationing at his ritzy golf courses at the
taxpayers' expense. Shouldn't those millions of dollars go to people in need,
rather than a pampered billionaire?
Wow, just when you think Trump can't possibly
get any worse, he does. He actually endorsed police "roughing up" people who
have not been convicted of crimes! Here's what Trump told a large group of
policemen during a speech at Suffolk County Community College: "When you see
these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy
wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don't be too
nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting
their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don't hit their
head and they've just killed somebody—don't hit their head. I said,
you can take the hand away, okay?" Law officers around the
country disavowed Trump's anti-American statements. In the United States,
everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial.
Judges and juries hand out sentences after serious study and deliberations. An
important goal is to keep innocent people from being beaten up and otherwise
punished unjustly. Trump is not nearly as wise as the American founding fathers,
who understood the need for justice over knee-jerk reflexes, which are often
misguided. To understand why Trump is so very wrong, just imagine someone you
know and love being arrested and beaten up when they were innocent of any crime!
Trump started wearing a bulletproof vest, according to New York
magazine, after his political rallies started to get out of hand. And there
are many YouTube videos
that confirm extreme problems with violence at Trump campaign
events. What was Trump's response? According to a TIME article on
campaign violence: "For his part, Trump has upped his signature bravado in
response to the clashes. While his campaign says it does not condone violence,
Trump has said he'd like to punch protesters in the face and offered to pay the
legal fees of supporters who did. His political rallies are frequently punctuated
by his roar—'Get 'em out!'—when a dissenter starts chanting or raising a sign."
Trump does not seem to believe in the constitutional rights of Americans, which
include freedom of public assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom to dissent. Hell, Trump even said
it was "incredible" that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot
someone, without losing any voters.! And since he became
president, Trump has been threatening the most extreme form of
violence—war—against North Korea, Iran and other nations.
How can anyone "Make America Great Again" by acting like a mafia don?
Trump doesn't seem to understand anything about equal rights, democracy or the
concept of "innocent until proven guilty." Police are not judges. Yes, if
someone is resisting arrest, they have the right to use as much force as
necessary to complete the arrest. But if the person being arrested is not
resisting, the police should try to avoid hurting them, and to keep them from hurting themselves. It is up to a judge and/or jury
to hear the case and decide what punishment, if any, is reasonable. But we
shouldn't be surprised that Trump is clueless. He once paid for a full-page,
very expensive ad in the New York Times, in which he called for the
death penalty for black teenagers accused of rape. But DNA evidence eventually
proved that they were innocent of the rape. What if Trump had gotten his way?
Those innocent teenagers would be dead today! Furthermore, Trump is an
incredible hypocrite because he admitted sexually assaulting women by groping
their genitals without asking their permission! Trump was also accused of rape
by a teenage girl who filed multiple cases against him. Should we assume that
Trump is guilty, let the cops rough him up, then string him up to get him off
the streets? If he deserves his day in court to plead his innocence, shouldn't
everyone else have the same rights?
There is no greater threat of violence than nuclear weapons, which have the
ability to make the earth uninhabitable not only for our children and
grandchildren, but for innumerable animals as well. Ronald Reagan, the most
admired conservative president in recent memory, was wise enough to understand
that we need to deescalate, not escalate. So he worked out a nuclear arms
reduction treaty with Russia. And what is the point of spending hundreds of
billions of dollars on weapons that can never be used without risking the
destruction of the planet? Is that a good investment? Apparently, Trump think
so.
Donald Trump seems to bring out the worst in everyone: both his supporters and the
opposition. How can a politician so divisive help the United States come
together?
Several
protesters filed lawsuits against Trump after being physically abused at
his rallies. Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was charged
with assault (battery) for manhandling Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields,
leaving her shaken and bruised. Lewandowski initially denied that he had ever touched Ms. Fields, calling her "delusional" and an
"attention seeker," but the event had been recorded on a surveillance tape and
there were eyewitnesses, including professional reporters like Ben Terris of the
Washington Post. Then Lewandowski was captured on video
grabbing a protester by the shirt collar at a Trump rally in Arizona and yanking
him backward, indicating a pattern of bullying behavior. But Trump seemed unconcerned, suggesting
that in the first case the victim, Ms. Fields, was lying: "How do you know those bruises weren't there before?"
Later, Trump said the reporter's pen could have been a "bomb" or a "knife." In the second case, Trump complimented Lewandowski's "spirit" and excused his
behavior by saying he was trying to "take down those horrible, profanity-laced
signs" even though a video of the incident clearly shows that the protester didn't
have a sign. And how can Trump be concerned about "horrible
profanity" when he uses highly offensive terms like "pussy" on the campaign trail?
(Trump is the ultimate hypocrite, insisting that other people must be "fair" to him
and treat him nicely, while he calls them every name in the book.) Lewandowski shrugged off the campaign violence by saying that Trump's
supporters are "passionate" and "express" their passion "in different ways." Trump himself
seemed to defend, or explain away, the brutal beating of a homeless Latino man
by saying that his supporters are "very passionate" and "love this country."
On this page you'll find violence-praising and
violence-inspiring quotes by The Donald
Himself, followed by accounts of people who have attended his rallies
or have otherwise observed his abysmal behavior ...
This guy [Trump] is dangerously unhinged. And, for all the things people
have said about me over the years, I should be able to spot Dangerously
Unhinged.―Glenn Beck
Donald Trump talks about violence with obvious relish, even glee. "I'd
like to punch him in the face," Trump said of one peaceful protester. About
another, he said, "I'll beat the crap out of you," adding, "Part of the problem
... is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore." Trump even
said that he'd "love" to fight 74-year-old Joe Biden! "Some
things in life you could really love doing!" Trump said,
sounding giddy at the thought of pounding a septuagenarian to a pulp. But, as a comedian pointed out,
Trump seems more like the guy who would sit and stroke a white cat, while
someone else administered the beating.
Trump was rushed off the stage by Secret Service agents after a crowd of his
supporters in Reno, Nevada attacked a peaceful protester, Austyn Crites. Crites
told reporters the incident started when he raised a "Republicans Against Trump"
sign. Crites said he was then assaulted by a group of Trump supporters: "All of
a sudden, because they couldn't grab the sign, or whatever happened, bam, I get
tackled by all these people who were just, like, kicking me and grabbing me in
the crotch and just, just beating the crap out of me," Crites said, according to
KTNV. "And somebody yells something about a gun, and so that's when things
really got out of hand." Trump spokesperson Kellyanne "Wrongway" Conway
tried to excuse the beating of Crites by claiming that he had been "planted" by
Democrats. But Crites explained that he has been a Republican for six years and
just doesn't want Trump to be elected president (like many other Republicans
including all living former Republican presidents, none of whom have endorsed
Trump). And even if Crites wasn't a Republican, there is no law against
non-Republicans attending public political rallies. We don't hear about
Republicans being evicted and beaten at Hillary Clinton's rallies, for instance.
Only Trump regularly incites that kind of violence at political rallies.
On the last day before the election, with the presidency hanging in the balance,
Trump was still focusing on getting revenge for past slights. He called Senator
Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas," a racial slur. (Warren has mentioned having
Native American blood.) Trump also called Warren a "terrible person," a
"terrible human being" and a "terrible senator" who is hated by her colleagues.
Trump has promised to create a Super PAC for the purpose of seeking vengeance on
people who criticized or opposed him. Warren will presumably be one of his first
targets. Around the same time, Hillary Clinton rallied a crowd of an estimated
33,000 supporters outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall. She told the crowd
that she deeply regrets how angry the tone of the campaign became, prompting
someone to yell that it wasn't her fault. Quite a contrast! But Trump was still
sticking to his chauvinistic line that women like Carly Fiorina and Hillary
Clinton cannot be president because they aren't perfect tens (in his opinion).
Trump called Hillary Clinton "‘the face of failure" as election day neared. Does
he ever look in the mirror, or are only women to be judged by their looks?
Obviously with Trump it's the latter.
Trump said, "I love war, in a
certain way" at a November 2015 rally, declaring that he knows "more about ISIS than
the generals do" and also calling "the power, the devastation" of nuclear
weapons "very important to me."
When asked what Trump meant by saying "I love war," his spokesperson Kellyanne "Wrongway"
Conway demurred to explain. But how can anyone explain a man who says that he
loves war, who claims to know more about ISIS than all our generals combined,
and who says that the power and devastation of nuclear weapons are "very
important" to him? Trump has also called himself the most militant person on the
planet. He recently said that he won't rule out using nukes in Europe, pointing
out that it's a "big place." Does he mean that Europe is so big that a few
nuclear explosions don't matter all that much? Trump even told Chris Matthews
that he would use nukes in response to a terrorist attack, in the form of a
question: "Somebody hits us within ISIS — you wouldn`t fight back with a nuke?"
When Matthews protested, Trump asked him: "Then why are we making them? Why do
we make them?" Trump cannot seem to grasp the idea that nukes are deterrents and
cannot be used to retaliate to conventional attacks. On a related note, MSNBC's
Joe Scarborough revealed that Trump, speaking with a foreign policy expert,
repeatedly asked "Why can't we use nuclear weapons?" Trump defended his position
by saying, "You want to be unpredictable." But the basis of the worldwide
stalemate on nuclear weapons is the understanding that no one can use them
without risking the destruction of much or most of the earth. There will be no
victors in a nuclear war, only losers. Trump has also talked about allowing
Japan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia was
home to most of the 9-11 conspirators and attackers. Is it wise to let Saudi
Arabia acquire nukes? Turkey recently had a military coup. What if there was a
coup in Saudi Arabia, and nukes fell into the hands of extremists? Trump's
defense of letting other nations acquire nukes sounds like a protection racket:
they either have to pay the United States for protection, or they should be
allowed to develop nukes so the US can save money! Trump sounds like a crackpot
on military matters, war and nukes.
Eric Trump recently said that former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke deserves "a
bullet." I am certainly no David Duke fan, but he has freedom of speech like
everyone else and as long as he's not breaking the law, no one should shoot him.
If he does break the law, the authorities should attempt to arrest him without
unnecessary violence. The Trump alpha males seem to lust for violence and see it
as the solution to every problem. They talk like the
Beverly Hillbillies gone over to the Dark Side of the Force.
Van Jones is one of my favorite political commentators. Here is what he said
about Trump on CNN's "State of the Union," while discussing the lewd comments
Trump made about groping women's genitals: "Well, look, this is a shocking kind
of moment, I think for the country, but I want to say a couple things. First,
this is the 'law and order' candidate. Let's not forget, this is Mr. Law and
Order who is now on tape confessing to a crime. He's confessing to sexual
assault. The problem isn't the talk; the problem isn't the bad word; the problem
is the bad deeds. He's saying he feels he has the right as a star to sexually
assault women. Now, the irony here is this for me: this man came on to the scene
politically in New York City by attacking five innocent black boys, by accusing
them of what? — sexual assault. ... That's right. He comes onto the scene. He
says these five boys committed sexual assault. They were innocent. He never
apologized. Then he said Mexican immigrants are rapists, sexual assaulters. But
it turns out the real sexual assaulter, the Super
Predator, is the man running for president. We have a
Super Predator running for
president; his name is Donald Trump. I want to challenge the media now, put up
the pictures of those five young innocent black boys and Donald Trump and ask
America who is the thug here? Who is the thug? It's Donald Trump."
Donald
Trump is an unabashed fan of brutal strongmen. Although Russian President
Vladimir Putin has squashed dissent, allegedly had journalists murdered, and
trampled international law and human rights, Trump
lavished praise on Putin, saying: "I think in terms of leadership, he's getting
an A and our President is not doing so well." Speaking about Kim Jong Un, the
dictator of North Korea who has been accused of starving his own people, Trump said:
"If you look
at North Korea, this guy, I mean, he's like a maniac, OK? And you've got to give
him credit. He goes in, he takes over, and he's the
boss. It's incredible! He
wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one!" In July, while musing
about longtime Iraqi boss Saddam Hussein, Trump waxed longingly about
dictatorial powers: "He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did
well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the
rights — they didn't talk, they were a terrorist, it was over." Trump has a
history of thinking this way. In a 1990 Playboy interview, Trump
even expressed his admiration for the Chinese Communist Party's murderous crackdown on
the Tiananmen Square student protest: "When the students poured into Tiananmen
Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were
horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of
strength."
Trump vastly overestimates his knowledge and competence when he claims: "I know
more about ISIS than the generals do." But what does he "know"? Trump chillingly
vowed that he would force American soldiers to kill terrorists' families, which
would make them serial murderers of women and children. When reporters suggested
that American soldiers would not follow such evil orders, Trump claimed
otherwise. "They won't refuse," Trump pronounced. "They're not gonna refuse me.
Believe me."
Trump has described himself as "the most militaristic person there is," while
flip-flopping between criticizing the war in Iraq and claiming that he would
seize Iraq's oil — "an undertaking that would require a massive invasion and
troop presence." Trump doesn't seem to realize that he can't do both: to take
Iraq's oil, he would have to launch a much bigger ground invasion than the first
one. To avoid another ground war, he would have to let Iraq keep its oil. Only
in the bizarre imagination of Donald Trump can he magically control Iraq's oil
without starting another unwinnable trillion-dollar war that results in more
deaths and dismemberments of American soldiers.
One thing Trump appears to share with strongmen he admires like Vladimir Putin
and Kim Jong Un is a relish for torture. One can detect what appears to be a
note of glee when Trump discusses bringing back waterboarding and things "a hell
of a lot worse" than waterboarding. This is despite the fact that experts have
repeatedly said that torture does not produce reliable information, and other
forms of interrogation are more effective. But still Trump insists that the
United States must do things that are "unthinkable." And he told a crowd of
supporters in Clairsville, Ohio, "I like it a lot." That is like saying, "I like
pulling fingernails a lot." No one should like inflicting pain on anyone else,
even if it were necessary. But torture is not necessary because it is less
effective than other types of interrogation. But Trump has insisted that he will
bring back torture even if it doesn't work because "they deserve it anyway."
However, Trump is not thinking about what happens to the young men and women who
are forced to administer the most reprehensible forms of torture. If torture
does no good, and it turns our sons and daughters into basket cases, who would
keep doing it? Only a madman, which Trump appears to be.
In addition to inciting physical violence, Donald Trump engages in body-shaming,
face-shaming, bullying
and verbal abuse of women. For example, he called
Alicia Machado, who became Miss Universe in 1996, an "Eating Machine" and "Miss Piggy"
because she gained weight; he also called her "Miss Housecleaning," presumably
because that is what Latinas are good for in his
lily-white world. Trump has also called women "pigs," "dogs," "disgusting animals,"
"slobs," "bimbos," "gold
diggers," "babies," "bitches" and other highly offensive names. He has a long history of such
remarks. If this concerns you, there is more information at
Donald Trump's War on Women.
NEWS FLASH: It turns out that Donald Trump has actually
admitted that he sexually assaults women by grabbing and groping "pussy." The
Washington Post has obtained and published a video in which Trump brags
about grabbing "pussy," saying that he can do "anything" to women because he's
famous. Ironically, he was bragging about grabbing bush to Billy
Bush of Access
Hollywood, on the set of the soap opera Days of Our Lives. For the full
scoop, click on
Donald Trump's War on Women.
There you will find the accounts of scores of women who claim they were sexually
assaulted by Trump, or suffered other offensive behavior by him. Several of the
complainants were minors when Trump allegedly barged into their dressing rooms,
then later bragged on the Howard Stern show that he got away with seeing beauty
contestants naked because he owned the pageants!
Take a Tic Tac and grab them by the pussy is the closest thing to a "plan"
Donald Trump has described this entire election!―Samantha
Bee
Trump not only admits that he physically abuses women; he also "boasts about
having poured a whole bottle of wine down Marie Brenner's back after she wrote a
story on him that he hated," in 1992. "Well, it wasn't a bottle, actually—it was
a glass," Brenner told The Daily Beast. "I didn't even notice it was
happening, because like everything with Donald, it was a stealth maneuver. It
came from behind."
How does Trump think about women, really? "You have to treat 'em like shit,"
Trump told his friend Philip Johnson, according to New York magazine.
"You'd make a good mafioso," Johnson replied. "One of the greatest," The Donald
assured him.
BTW, it's amusing that Rudy Giuliani is now Trump's surrogate, defending him
from accusations of sexual assault and other improprieties by scores of women,
when in a 2000 "Mayor's Inner Circle" video, Giuliani in drag had his "breasts"
schmoozed by The Donald, after which Giuliani slapped his face and called him a "dirty boy."
Obviously, Giuliani was well aware of Trump's reputation for grabbing and
groping women without bothering to ask for their permission! Trump's outrageous
behavior seems to have been a running joke among alpha males in his circle. In 1993, fellow bad
boy Howard Stern asked Trump directly: "So you treat women with respect?" Trump
answered honestly: "No, I can't say that either." And hundreds of chauvinistic
public statements and tweets by Trump confirm that he doesn't treat women with
respect, or minorities, or anyone that he considers "weak" or "overweight" or
"unattractive." Would Donald Trump create an
American Holocaust by deporting 11 million people, including multitudes of
completely innocent children and their mothers? Is Trump the second coming of
Adolph Hitler? Yes, nicknames like Hair Hitler and Hair
Furor are amusing, but are they also accurate, and perhaps prophetic?
Republicans sowed intolerance and in its shadow, Trump sprang up
like toxic fungi.―Charles M. Blow
"I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to
all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of
this great and historic presidential election, if I win," Trump
told supporters after the third and final presidential debate. So, according to
Trump, the election will be "great" and "historic" only if he wins. What hidden
message is he sending his supporters, if he loses? Is Trump suggesting that all
bets are off, if he loses? Is this a call for more violence, since it seems
obvious at this point that Trump will lose the election?
Trump was violent at a young age: in his book The Art of the Deal, he
said that he gave his second grade music teacher a black eye and was almost
expelled! When the music teacher, Charles Walker, was told that Trump was
running for president, he said: "When that kid was 10, even then he was a little
shit." A childhood friend said that the young Donald was known to throw erasers
at teachers and birthday cake at playmates. In tapes made by Trump's biographer
Michael D'Antonio, Trump described his "lust" for fighting in high school. Also,
as I mentioned previously, Trump talked about how much he would "love" to fight
74-year-old Vice President Joe Biden. And according to Trump himself, he
never grew up: "When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself
now, I'm basically the same," he told D'Antonio. "The temperament is not
that different." Dennis Burnham, who was four years younger and lived around the
corner from Donald, says: "Donald was known to be a bully, I was a little kid,
and my parents didn't want me beaten up." Once when she left Dennis in a playpen
in a back yard adjoining the Trumps' property, Martha Burnham returned to find
Donald throwing rocks at her son. "She saw Donald standing at the fence," Dennis
Burnham said, "using the playpen for target practice." Trump spent enough time
in detention, Paul Onish said, that his buddies nicknamed the punishment "DTs" —
short for "Donny Trump." Steve Nachtigall, who lived nearby, said he saw Trump
and a friend jump off their bikes to beat up another boy. "It's kind of like a
little video snippet that remains in my brain because I think it was so unusual
and terrifying at that age," recalled Nachtigall. "He was a loudmouth bully."
When young Donald was caught with a collection of switchblades, his father had
him shipped off to a military academy. There, he tried to push a fellow cadet
through a second-story window, but was thwarted by two other students.
"Thanks to politicians like George W. Bush, Sarah
Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, we now have a duh-mock-racy."—Michael R. Burch
Is Trump a fascist? That accusation has not only been made by his liberal
opposition, but by leaders of his own party who have either called Trump a
fascist, used the word "fascist" in relation to Trump's positions,. or
compared him to other fascist leaders. Such comments have been made by notable
Republicans like Max Boot, Steve Deace, Jim Gilmore, Robert Kagan, John Noonan,
Mac Stipanovich and Meg Whitman.
Is Violence Trump's Central Premise?
According to a recent article by Vann R. Newkirk II in The Atlantic,
bigotry is Trump's "primary mode" and violence is his "central premise." Newkirk
writes: "The central premise of a Trump presidency is violence, and the coercive threat
of violence: building a wall and intimidating Mexico into paying for it, banning
immigrants based on religion, expanding the country's already-expansive
deportation protocol, and punishing women for abortions. His rhetoric has been
explicitly linked by prominent Republicans with tragedies such as the
Charleston massacre. That the candidate himself regularly speaks threateningly
about women and minorities and has prescribed violence at his own events are not
facts ancillary to his candidacy, but core features of its appeal. A vote for
Donald Trump is, among other things, a vote for a wide promulgation of violence."
And indeed this is exactly what we see at Trump's political rallies: visceral
bigotry channeled into acts of overt violence. Trump and his supporters seem to
relish both the bigotry and the violence. In fact, they seem rather gleeful,
like terrible tykes frying grasshoppers with a magnifying lens after pulling
their legs off so they can't hop away. Trump presents himself as a Hitler-like
strongman who is ready, willing and able to make the fatherland "great again" by
rounding up, deporting and banning "inferior" people. In Hitler's day the
"inferior" people were Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. Trump's "inferiors" are
Hispanics and Muslims, although all non-white immigrants are suspect. A judge
who is a second-generation German-American like Trump can be trusted, while a
judge who is a second-generation Mexican-American cannot. That is racism, pure
and simple. Trump sounds like a Grand Wizard of the KKK, and the fact that he
refused to immediately reject the endorsement of David Duke, a former Grand
Wizard and the most notorious living KKK-er, says worlds about his mindset.
The Top Ten Donald Trump Violence Quotes
At a November 2015 rally, Donald Trump said that as he watched the Twin Towers
come down, in Jersey City thousands of Muslims cheered the catastrophe: "There
were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have
large Arab populations," he told the crowd. "They were cheering as the World
Trade Center came down." But there is no evidence that any such "cheering" took
place, and it certainly was not televised, meaning that Trump could not have
seen the "cheering" on TV. Based on his fictitious beliefs about Muslims,
referring to himself in the third person like royalty, he
regally decreed: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a complete and total
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's
representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
Trump has repeatedly talked about the virtues of punching and otherwise abusing
protesters. At one rally he encouraged his supporters to "knock the crap" out of
protesters. He offered to pay the legal fees of his supporters who attacked
protesters. He expressed his personal desire to punch protesters, although one
late night comedian observed that Trump seems more like the evil mastermind who
would stroke a white cat while someone else did the punching.
Trump has repeatedly attacked women. For example: "Women have one of the great
acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine and needy, but inside they
are real killers. The person who came up with the expression 'the weaker sex'
was either very naive or had to be kidding. I have seen women manipulate men
with just a twitch of their eye ... or perhaps another body part."
In June 2015, while announcing his candidacy for president, Donald Trump shocked
people worldwide by making a statement about Mexican immigrants, a topic that
has become a staple for Trump's campaign: "When Mexico sends its people, they're
not sending the best. They're sending people that have lots of problems and
they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime.
They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border
guards and they're telling us what we're getting." Trump then proposed,
essentially, a new American Holocaust, which would involve rounding up 11
million Hispanics and deporting them without due process, which would require
huge internment/concentration camps like those of Nazi Germany.
Trump attacked American gays and their rights, using a golf metaphor: "It's like
in golf. A lot of people―I don't want this to sound trivial―but a lot of people
are switching to these really long putters, very unattractive. It's weird. You
see these great players with these really long putters, because they can't sink
three-footers anymore. And, I hate it. I am a traditionalist. I have so many
fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist."
During a July 2015 campaign event at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa,
Donald Trump attacked Senator John McCain's reputation as a war hero, and all
American POWs in the process: "He's not a war hero," Trump explained, shocking
the event's moderator. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people
who weren't captured." (Trump managed to avoid being captured during the Vietnam
War by claiming to have "bone spurs" and thus avoiding the draft and military
service.)
Trump has repeatedly attacked women, including Rosie O'Donnell, Bette Midler,
Cher, Kristen Stewart, Megyn Kelly, Ariana Huffington, Carly Fiorina, Heidi
Cruz, Elizabeth McGovern and Hillary Clinton.
Trump has said that he will not rule out using nukes in Europe, because he wants
to be "unpredictable."
Trump has said that he will not rule out attacking China militarily, over trade
disagreements.
Trump has said that as president and commander-in-chief of the the U.S. military
he would require American soldiers to hunt down and "take out" the families of
terrorists ... in other words, mass murdering women and children.
Is Donald Trump Contributing to Increasing Violence in the United
States?
A new report published by Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding has documented an upsurge in violence against Muslims in the
United States coinciding with the 2016 election campaign. The major uptick in
hate crimes dates back toward the end of 2015, which corresponds with Donald
Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Trump's Violent Worldview Explained by his Biographer, Michael D'Antonio
Trump's basic philosophy of living, instilled by his fiercely ambitious,
workaholic father, enforced by the tough-as-nails coach at his military high
school and honed over a lifetime of ruthless deal-making, is fairly simple and
severe: Life is mainly combat; the law of the jungle rules; pretty much all that
matters is winning or losing and rules are made to be broken. It is largely a
materialistic worldview; even the brand of Christianity Trump was raised in was
fairly materialistic, the product of pastor Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote:
"Learn to pray big prayers. God will rate you according to the size of your
prayers." Thus, for those of us who have followed Trump's career from the start,
the worldview he has trotted out to the public is no surprise. Some people seem
shocked that he embraces torture without compunction; openly admires the
suppression of freedom by Chinese and Russian dictators; and shows little grasp
of ethics, governance or constitutionalism, as evidenced by his insistence that
the U.S. openly engage in war crimes (by killing the families of terrorists). Or
that he often seems ignorant of history and the economic benefits of free trade,
dismissing the U.S. alliance and trading system that won the Cold War as
"obsolete," calling regularly for punitive tariffs and insisting over and over
again, "We never win anymore," as if trade were a zero-sum game (which it is
not). Or that he relishes the idea that people at his rallies punch each other,
suggesting that his supporters "knock the crap out of" any disrupters. But, as
Trump's biographer, I can tell you these views fundamentally define the man. And
if you're looking—or perhaps hoping—for something more, you shouldn't expect to
find it. If you are seeking reassurance that the man who could be the next
president of the United States possesses a coherent political philosophy or
ethical foundation other than this rather pre-Enlightenment code of
behavior—that he subscribes to the ideals of the Founders, or has studied and
understood American democracy, human rights and our Constitutional system—you
won't get it. Rare if not unique in American politics, Trump's views and
provocations are consistent with his biography. Trump first became a public
figure in the 1970s when, in response to charges of housing discrimination, his
lawyer compared federal officials to the Gestapo. From this point on,
Trump consistently showed he was willing to use threats, insults and deception
not unlike the kinds of things he says about his political rivals today—if it
meant getting what he wanted. His view of life resembled the Hobbesian nightmare
of a "war of all against all" with little regard for the social contract that
makes for peaceful communities and countries.
Does Donald Trump have a Personality Disorder?
Does Donald Trump have Grandiose Personality Disorder (GPD)? "Grandiose
narcissists…know they are superior and will seek revenge or go into a vicious
rage against those who don't treat them with respect or dare to give them
negative feedback. They may openly have multiple relationships/affairs and pride
themselves on how many people see how wonderful they are. They can be very
aggressive and dominance-seeking without empathy or remorse." According to
Harvard professor and researcher Howard Gardner, Donald Trump is a "textbook"
narcissist. In fact, he fits the profile so well that clinical psychologist
George Simon told Vanity Fair, "He's so classic that I'm archiving video clips
of him to use in workshops." According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissistic
personality disorder is "a mental disorder in which people have an inflated
sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy
for others."
Ultimate Violence: Donald Trump Threatens to Use Nukes and Start Wars
Asked more than once if he'd use nuclear weapons in Europe, Trump held firm: "I
am not—I am not taking cards off the table," he responded.
Trump said that he'd allow Saudi Arabia to have nukes. Has he ever heard of a
coup? Has he forgotten that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi, as were most of the
9-11 conspirators and attackers? Does he realize that Mecca is the holiest of
cities to Muslims, and that many jihadists want to take control of Saudi Arabia
and convert it to their militant version of Islam? Do we really want to risk
having nukes in Saudi Arabia? President Obama responded to the Trump's comments
about nuclear weapons: "The person who made the statements doesn't know much
about foreign policy, or nuclear policy ... or the world generally." Trump
responded to Obama and other critics of his nuclear weapons proposal by saying:
"I know more about it than they do," adding, "I have business judgment."
Perhaps, but does Trump have any military judgement or plain and simple common sense?
In an interview with The New York Times, Trump said that he would not
rule out going to war with China in order to prove that he's serious
about trade negotiations: "I would use trade to negotiate. Would I go to war?
Look, let me just tell you. There's a question I wouldn't want to answer.
Because I don't want to say I won't or I will or – do you understand that,
David?" he said, addressing Times reporter David Sanger. "That's the problem
with our country. A politician would say, ‘Oh I would never go to war,' or
they'd say, ‘Oh I would go to war.' I don't want to say what I'd do because,
again, we need unpredictability."
Trump Bullies and Mocks the Handicapped
Trump came under fire in November 2015 for mocking a disabled newspaper reporter, Serge Kovaleski,
who suffers from a congenital joint condition that affects the movement in his
arms. Trump mimicked Kovaleski's hand and arm movements, in a way that suggested
he is mentally retarded, which he is not.
More Donald Trump Quotes
"I have a great relationship with the blacks."
"The beauty of me is that I'm very rich."
"All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me—consciously or
unconsciously. That's to be expected."
"I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I'm
more honest and my women are more beautiful."
"You know, it really doesn't matter what [the media] write as long as you've got
a young and beautiful piece of ass."
"I'm a really smart guy."
"People say, ‘Mr. Trump, you're not a nice person.' But actually I am."
"Some of the candidates, they went in and didn't know the air conditioner didn't
work and sweated like dogs, and they didn't know the room was too big because
they didn't have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?"
"I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a
traditionalist."
"I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created."
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to
make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
"The point is, that you can never be too greedy."
"Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest, and you all know it!
Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault."
"I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say."
"Even if the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, I won't lose a penny."
"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me,
and I'll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our
southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall."
"Sadly, because president Obama has done such a poor job as president, you won't
see another black president for generations!"
"It's Friday. How many bald eagles did wind turbines kill today? They are an
environmental & aesthetic disaster."
"The line of ‘Make America great again,' the phrase, that was mine, I came up
with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody's now using it,
they are all loving it. I don't know. I guess I should copyright it."
"And did you notice that baby was crying through half of the speech and I didn't
get angry? Not once. Did you notice that? That baby was driving me crazy. I
didn't get angry once because I didn't want to insult the parents for not taking
the kid out of the room!"
Trump Insults and Bullies Women, His Political Rivals, and his Critics
"Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get five
percent of the vote," according to The Donald. He also called her "such a nasty
woman" during the third presidential debate.
Trump called Senator Elizabeth Warren, a highly-regarded legislator, a "goofus"
and a "basket case" after she criticized him.
"If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband what makes her think she can
satisfy America?" This is a Trump tweet that he later had deleted.
"Look at that face!" Trump told a Rolling Stone reporter as
Carly Fiorina appeared on TV. "Would anyone vote for that?"
"Can you imagine that, the face of our next next president? I mean, she's a
woman, and I'm not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are
we serious?"
Trump called Rev. Faith Green Timmons a "nervous mess" after she asked him not
to make a political speech in her church.
"Women have one of the great acts of all time. The smart ones act very feminine
and needy, but inside they are real killers."
Trump told Brande Roderick, a contestant on The Apprentice: "It
must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees."
"My favorite part of Pulp Fiction is when Sam has his gun
out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell
that bitch to be cool. Say: 'Bitch be cool.' I love those lines."
"Women: You have to treat 'em like shit!"
Trump told Howard Stern that he believed there was something "sick" about women
that caused them to be attracted to men who treat them poorly [like shit].
Trump posted an attack video showing Hillary Clinton barking like a dog.
"I think Gloria [Allred] would be very very impressed with [my penis]!"
"You know, it doesn't really matter what [the media] write as long as you've got
a young and beautiful piece of ass."
"Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would
say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, 'Can you believe
what I am getting?'"
Trump spoke often of Princess Diana, saying he would have bedded her "without
hesitation" because "She had the height, she had the beauty, she had the
skin. She was crazy, but these are minor details."
"Why do people think it's egotistical of you to say you could've gotten with
Lady Di?" Howard Stern asked. "You could've gotten her, right? You could've
nailed her." Trump agreed: "I think I could have."
"@MichelleMalkin would be nothing without being on the @seanhannity show. I
don't see what Sean sees in her — loser!"
Here is another Trump message to Malkin: "You were born stupid!"
Trump called Khloe Kardashian a "fat piglet" and "the ugly Kardashian" when she
appeared on Celebrity Apprentice in 2009.
Here are some of the potty words employed by Donald Trump to
describe women, his rivals and his critics: pussy, bimbo, gold digger, ugly,
grotesque, "real killers," "brain dead puppets," crude, rude, obnoxious, strident, dumb, fat, "fat pigs," slobs,
disgraceful, disgusting,
"disgusting animals," "unattractive both inside and out," dogs, "sweating like a dog," "face of a dog,"
"cheated like a dog," "barking like a dog," sleaze,
sleazy, sleazebag, scum, perv, nasty, slime, slimy, sick, pathetic, unstable, "totally
unstable individual," pathological,
deviant, "basket case," "mental problem," choker, lightweight, "lightweight choker,"
"choke artist," "nervous wreck," weak,
"weak as a baby," weakest, "little boy," "no chance," overrated, loser, "total loser,"
"total disaster," "low
energy," liar, crazy, "lies like crazy," "the biggest liar I've
ever seen," "the single biggest liar I've ever come across," dishonest, "very dishonest," moron,
dope, dopey, fool, "jealous fool," "very foolish," worthless, stiff, "total
stiff," "major
inferiority complex," "truly weird," "spoiled brat," "without a properly
functioning brain," "got schlonged," zero, thugs, "a total Bush-y" and so on.
Trump was Accused of Rape by his Wife
Donald Trump was accused of rape by his first wife, Ivana Trump. It seems she
had recommended the doctor who performed the scalp reduction surgery that resulted
in his highly unusual hairline, and Trump became enraged. In a
deposition in her divorce case, she said that he forced her to have sex and that
she felt that she had been raped and violated. Trump has also been
accused of bullying and insulting a number of women, including Megyn Kelly,
Carly Fiorina, Rosie O'Donnell, Bette Midler, Cher, Kristen Stewart, and a
female lawyer who requested a break to pump breast milk for her baby. Trump has
used terms like "fat pigs," "dogs," "disgusting animals" and "bimbos" to
describe women.
Trump Bullies Disabled Vets
Donald Trump avoided military service in the Vietnam War by claiming to
have "bone spurs." But these mysterious "bone spurs" didn't prevent him from
playing sports in high school and college. After apparently dodging the draft,
Trump said that a real military hero, John McCain was only a hero because he was
captured. Trump then insulted every American POW by saying that he prefers
soldiers who don't get captured. Even worse, Trump sells expensive baubles on
ritzy Fifth Avenue, while rousting and trying to ban disabled vets who risked
life and limb to defend their country. Here is a letter Trump wrote in 1991
letter to John Dearie, the chairman of the state assembly's Committee on Cities,
in an attempt to keep vets from street vending on Fifth Avenue:
"Do we allow Fifth Ave., one of the world's finest and most luxurious shopping
districts, to be turned into an outdoor flea market, clogging and seriously
downgrading the area?" Michael Daly of the Daily Beast reports that
Trump was "still at it in 2004" when he wrote a letter to New York mayor Michael
Bloomberg pleading for him to ban the veterans' street stalls: "Whether they are
veterans or not, they [the vendors] should not be allowed to sell on this most
important and prestigious shopping street," Trump declared. "The image of New
York City will suffer … I hope you can stop this very deplorable situation
before it is too late." The New York Legislature had originally accorded a
special vendor's license to disabled veterans in the aftermath of the Civil War,
so they have as much right to sell merchandise on Fifth Avenue as Trump. For him
to claim that it was "very deplorable" for disabled veterans to sell their
wares, while he was allowed to sell his, smacks of wild hypocrisy, especially
when he avoided military service with those mysterious "bone spurs."
Trump Bullies Little Old Ladies
"If there was ever an example of a caddish play, it was Trump's persecution of
five-foot-three-inch-tall Atlantic City widow, Vera Coking. In 1961, Coking
bought a modest three-story house on Columbia Place in Atlantic City a short
walk off the boardwalk. She raised her children in that house. She made a life
in that house. For 25 years, Vera Coking lived in that house while Atlantic City
began its transformation into a Jersey-style version of Vegas, complete with
mega casinos and their billionaire owners." Donald Trump wanted to buy her
house, in order to use it for limousine parking for one of his casinos. He
offered Coking $250,000 or a quarter of what she had been offered a few years
before. Trump threatened to use eminent domain to force her to sell her house
for a fraction of what it was worth. But fortunately Trump doesn't always win
and a New Jersey court found in Coking's favor. Coking, according to the New
York Daily News, called Trump a "maggot, a cockroach, and a crumb" for his
behavior in the ordeal. Vera Coking "faced down the Donald's bullying and lived
to tell the tale."
Trump Intends to Bully Nations
If he becomes president of the United States, he has made it clear: Donald Trump
intends to bully nations the way he has bullied so many individuals. Trump will
bully Mexico into paying for his border wall. Trump will bully China into paying
enormous tariffs. Trump will bully Middle Eastern nations into doing his
bidding. Trump will even bully our allies into paying "protection money" to the
United States, making him a sort of Mafia mob boss.
Trump's Mob Boss Strong-Arm Tactics
Donald Trump has suggested there will be "riots" by his supporters in Cleveland
if he doesn't win the nomination. One of his campaign advisers, Roger Stone, has
threatened to give out the hotel phone numbers of delegates who switch from
Trump to other candidates. Presumably, the delegates will be harassed and
threatened by Trump supporters. Will some of them get mugged as well, like
protesters at Trump rallies? Stone has also threatened "days of rage" if things
don't go Trump's way.
If it sounds too crazy to be true, Donald Trump has used extreme strong-arm
tactics before. For instance, there was the time the Rolling Stones fired Trump
and insisted that he leave his own building before they performed. This was back
in 1989, when the Stones' Steel Wheels Tour was about to broadcast a
multi-million-dollar pay-per-view event at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in
Atlantic City. According to Michael Cohl, the tour's promoter, Trump was acting
like a diva and trying to make himself the center of attention, when he had
promised not to appear at the concert. In his frustration, Keith Richard pulled out a knife, slammed it on a
table, and demanded that someone fire Trump, or he would do it himself.
Cohl then insisted that Trump and Marla Maples leave the building, which sent
Trump into a rage. Cohl has vividly described how three Trump "shtarkers"
(muscle-bound goons) started to put on brass knuckles and gloves in a
crystal-clear act of intimidation. But Cohl was immediately rescued
by 40 roadies armed with "tire irons, hockey sticks and screwdrivers."
Trump and his henchmen quickly decided that discretion was the better part of
valor, and beat a hasty retreat. Cohl later described it as the night he "fired"
Trump. But who will stand up to Trump and his henchmen at the convention?
Donald Trump Quotes Encouraging and Condoning Physical Violence
Trump insists that American soldiers should kill women and children: "We're
fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the
terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists,
you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid
yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out
their families."
When asked to explain this inexplicable position, which would make American
soldiers mass murderers of women and children, and guilty of war crimes, Trump
explained that murdering the widows and orphans of terrorists is necessary for
purposes of "retribution." Donald Trump seems like a very sick puppy to me.
Donald Trump is a Fan of Torture and Seems Very Eager to get Started
"The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and
regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight." [Our soldiers have not been
"afraid to fight."]
Trump has repeatedly gushed about the wonders of waterboarding. "I think it's great but I don't think we
go far enough!" [Great, really?]
"Waterboarding would be fine. If they can expand the laws, I would do a lot more
than waterboarding," Trump said on NBC's Today program.
"I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than
waterboarding." [Thumbscrews? The Rack?]
"Don't tell me it doesn't work. Torture works, OK folks? I
think we should go much stronger than waterboarding, that's the way I feel."
[The real experts say torture doesn't work and is actually counter-productive.]
"Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I
would approve more than that. It works. Only a stupid person would say it
doesn't work." [Trump is calling the experts "stupid," as usual for
him.]
"And if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us."
[What about the people who turn out to be innocent of any crime? Did they
"deserve" it?]
But then, as he so often does, Trump contradicted himself: "Though the
effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be
taken off the table when American lives are at stake."
Where does Trump get his military and intelligence advice? When asked where he
gets such advice, Trump answered: "I watch the shows." But to my knowledge,
no military or intelligence expert has advocated Trump's extreme positions. I
think Trump was more honest when he said that he listens to himself because he's
"smart." But perhaps he only thinks he's smart, just as he delusionally thinks he's "good
looking" and his hands are "big."
What other more extreme forms of torture is Trump so anxious to bring back? The
CIA's discontinued "enhanced interrogation" program employed sleep deprivation,
waterboarding, sexual humiliation, mock executions,
threats to kill the children of prisoners, and other harsh
techniques. It turned out that some of the people tortured were not terrorists,
had done nothing wrong, and had no information to give. And torture doesn't
work, as Ryan Cooper pointed out: "In fact, torture is absolute garbage for
intelligence work. This fact is firmly established; look no further than Darius Rejali's
massive book on torture, which is the last word on the subject."
Points to Ponder:
Trump has made it abundantly clear that as president he would go far beyond
waterboarding. He sounds anxious to get started, just as he sounded anxious to
"take out" widows and orphans. He seems like a sick puppy to me. Should our
soldiers rape and behead people, because ISIS does such things? Or should we
hold ourselves to a higher standard? At the end of World War II, German soldiers
would retreat from the Russian front to surrender to Americans because they knew
Americans would not torture them. Do we want to sacrifice our nation's honor and
reputation because of the fear and cowardice of someone like Donald John Trump?
Trump has called senior members of our military and intelligence services
"stupid" because they have pointed out that torture does not produce reliable
information. People being tortured will say anything to make the torture stop. A
2014 inquiry conducted by the Senate found "enhanced interrogation techniques"
like waterboarding to be brutal and ineffective. Trump's "stupid people" include
FBI interrogation expert Ali Soufan and Jennifer Bryson, who was an interrogator
at Guantanamo Bay. Bryson said: "Torture is antithetical to effective
intelligence collection. Torture is not just ineffective; it is
counter-effective." She went on to explain that torture results in false
information being provided to stop the pain, whereas gaining honest information
requires the interrogator to appeal to the humanity of the person being
questioned, and build a rapport. John McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner
of war in Vietnam and was tortured, giving him first-hand experience, sternly
criticized Trump and Cruz for their campaign rhetoric: "It is clear to me that
this practice, which is a simulated execution by drowning, amounts to torture as
a reasonable person would define it." One huge problem with Trump and Cruz is
that their oversized egos leave them unable to see and understand their own
limitations. Carpet bombing is evil, a war crime, and bad military strategy.
Torture is evil, a war crime and counter-productive. They should listen to the
experts, but they only listen to themselves. Trump is a real estate salesman.
Cruz is a lawyer. They have no business being commander-in-chief of our military
and intelligence services.
Bashing Protesters
After a Trump supporter sucker-punched protester Rakeem Jones and threatened
to "kill him" next time, Trump said: "He obviously loves this country and maybe
he doesn't like seeing what's happening to the country."
Trump told a Cedar Rapids crowd to "... knock the crap out of 'em,
would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for
the legal fees. I promise. I promise."
During a protest in Warren, Michigan, Trump said of a protester: "Get him out. Try not to hurt
him. If you do I'll defend you in court."
"Are Trump rallies the most fun?" he then asked the Warren crowd, as
if violence is humorous entertainment. "We're having
a good time."
At a New Hampshire rally where a protester was "taken out" by the audience,
Trump gleefully said: "It was really amazing to watch."
During a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump said: "In the good old
days, this doesn't happen, because they used to treat them very, very rough.
We've become very weak."
After a Trump supporter punched and choked a protester at a rally in Birmingham, Trump said: "maybe he deserved to get roughed up."
In Las Vegas, Trump was not happy to see a protester being escorted away
peacefully: "The guards are being very gentle with him," Trump said. "I'd like
to punch him in the face, I'll tell you that."
"We're not allowed to punch back any more," Trump lamented in Las Vegas. But a
security guard denied that the protester had thrown any punches, saying Trump
was "over-exaggerating."
Trump continued his tirade:
"I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that in a place like this? They'd be
carried out on a stretcher, folks."
So peaceful protesters should end up in the emergency room, according to the
Wisdom of Trump.
Trump condoned violence at his campaign events by claiming "the protesters are
bad dudes." But many of the protestors were not violent. One was ejected for
wearing a "Love is the Answer" t-shirt, for Chrissakes.
"Sometimes we talk a little bit tough," Trump said. "When I see somebody out
swinging his fists, I say, ‘Get 'em the hell out of here.' We're a little
rough."
Taunting demonstrators at a rally in St. Louis, Trump said insultingly: "Go home
and get a job. Go home to mommy."
"The wall will go up and Mexico will start behaving."
"Our great African American President hasn't exactly had a positive impact on
the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!"
"Laziness is a trait in the blacks. ... Black guys counting my money! I hate
it."
At a November 2015 rally, Trump said that "thousands" of Muslims cheered the
destruction of the Twin Towers: "They were cheering as the World Trade Center
came down." But the claim was obviously bogus. It didn't happen.
Donald Trump's slogan "Make America great again" seems to be white supremacist
code for "Make American white again."
The "golden age" that Trump wants to return to is the "good old days" when
whites ruled and people with darker skin obeyed and were afraid.
Actual Physical Violence at Donald Trump Political Events
"Listen to the crowd. There's no violence. It's a media fabrication," Republican
frontrunner Donald Trump told People magazine. He calls his rallies
"love fests." But the facts say otherwise ...
A 15-year-old girl was groped at a Trump rally in Janesville, Wisconsin. When
she protested, she was maced by another audience member. The crowd taunted her
and cheered her attackers.
The n-word is often heard at Trump rallies, along with racist terms like "nigger
lover."
Protesters have been physically manhandled and dragged out of Trump rallies
while Trump cheered on the manhandlers.
Protesters have had their hair pulled by Trump supporters.
Protesters have been sucker-punched by Trump supporters.
An AP photographer was choked by a Trump security guard.
Reporter Michelle Fields was manhandled and bruised by Trump's campaign manager,
who was latter arrested for battery.
Trump told security to eject a Burlington protester and to confiscate
the heckler's coat, sending him into the Vermont winter without protection:
"You know it's about ten degrees below zero outside," he gleefully enthused.
At a University of Central Florida rally, Trump appeared barely able to contain
his glee at the violence that ensued. "It's sort of exciting, isn't it? Sort of
exciting!" Trump said as a protester was removed. "Aren't Trump rallies the
greatest?"
Trump campaign manager Roger Stone threatened the entire RNC by
saying the Trump campaign would give out the names and phone numbers of delegates who switched from
Trump to other candidates.
Paul Wertheimer, a crowd control specialist called the "marshal of the mosh pit" by
The Washington Post, said the power to control the crowd
ultimately lies with Trump. "This is no different than if he were a rock star on
stage," Wertheimer said. "You can whip up the mosh pit or you can calm it down.
He's holding the mic. He's in control." Wertheimer said the way Trump encourages
the crowd concerns him. "In crowd management, the idea is to get individuals in
a crowd to work together for the common good, but when you split the crowd up
and you divide it, into a confrontational situation you have dangerous moments
and a chance things will spin out of control and people will be injured," he
said. "What is troubling to me is that Mr. Trump seems to enjoy it and seems to
encourage it and to manipulate the crowd into situations that are beyond his
control. If he doesn't become more cautious, it's going to be beyond his control
to manage. "It's not a board of directors that he's used to dealing with,"
Wertheimer added.
Donald Trump Excuses and Condones Acts of Violence
Donald Trump excuses and condones acts of violence by saying that his followers
have "tremendous love and passion for the country." He says they "have anger
that's unbelievable," as if that somehow explains violence. He claims they "love
this country" and says their "great love for the country" is "a beautiful thing
in many respects." But millions of other Americans manage to love their country
without beating up people with different political views.
In August 2015, two Boston men were arrested for beating a homeless Latino man
with a metal pole. One of them told police, "Donald Trump was right — all these
illegals need to be deported." When Trump was asked about what happened at a New
Hampshire press conference, he initially said that he didn't know anything about
the incident — then remarked: "I will say that people who are following me are
very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great
again. They are passionate. I will say that, and everybody here has reported
it."
Nazi brownshirts were very passionate about the Fatherland, and they frequently
beat up Jews and other minorities in the throes of their passions. Today we
think about such things with a sense of horror. So we should be horrified that
Donald Trump and his supporters feel free to vent their passions on other
people, in the form of physical abuse.
Is Donald Trump Using the Threat of Violence to Hold the GOP Hostage?
Trump recently said that a contested GOP convention could be a disaster if he
goes to Cleveland and doesn't leave as the party's nominee. "I think you'd have
riots," Trump said on CNN. Noting that he's "representing many millions of
people," he told Chris Cuomo: "If you disenfranchise those people, and you say,
‘I'm sorry, you're 100 votes short'… I think you'd have problems like you've
never seen before. I think bad things would happen." Is Trump making a thinly
veiled suggestion that the GOP had better nominate him, or else? Could this even
be a suggestion to his supporters? With Trump, anything seems possible.
Is Talking and Acting Crazy the Secret of Trump's Success?
According to a national Economist/YouGov poll, when asked the main reason for
Donald Trump's success with voters, by far the most popular answer (39% to 50%)
was that Trump is not politically correct. According to Trump himself, not being
politically correct allows him to say racist, sexist and intolerant things. One
of the things he says repeatedly is that people who disagree with him are "sad"
and "terrible" and should be thrown out, punched, and otherwise manhandled. Is
this tinhorn strongman act the main source of his success with his "base"?
Witness Accounts
There's a history of demagogues calling those they disagree with
"terrorists" and using that as justification for intimidation and violence – and
that history is ugly and dangerous. There's also a history of people staying
quiet for too long, hoping for the best but watching silently as the threat
metastasizes. Donald Trump is a bigger, uglier threat every day that goes by –
and it's time for decent people everywhere – Republican, Democrat, Independent –
to say No More Donald. There's no virtue in silence.―
Elizabeth Warren
Trump always surrounds himself w thugs. Tonight thug Corey Lewandowski tried to
pull my gf @MichelleFields to
ground when she asked tough q ― Daily Caller senior editor Jaime
Weinstein. Weinstein is the boyfriend of Michelle Fields, who is a reporter for
Breitbart News. Corey Lewandowski is Donald Trump's campaign manager.
According to reports, Fields was trying to ask Trump a question when Lewandowski
manhandled her and nearly dragged her to the ground "like a rag doll." She
emerged from the violent encounter shaken, sporting a noticeable purple bruise.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of
peaceful assembly, freedom of dissent?
It's obviously unacceptable that someone crossed a line and made physical
contact with our reporter. What Michelle has told us directly is that someone
‘grabbed her arm' and while she did not see who it was, Ben Terris of The
Washington Post told her that it was Corey Lewandowski. If that's the case,
Corey owes Michelle an immediate apology. ― Larry Solov, CEO and president of
Breitbart News
According to a Daily Beast report, Lewandowski's explanation was that
he and Fields had never met before and that he didn't recognize her as a
Breitbart reporter, instead mistaking her for an adversarial member of the
mainstream media. So apparently the Trump campaign thinks it is permissible to
manhandle reporters as long as they're not "friendlies."
What did Donald Trump have to say about the assault on Michelle Fields? He chose
to blame the victim, saying: "Perhaps she made the story up. I think that's what
happened." Lewandowski took a similar approach, calling Fields an "attention
seeker" on Twitter and implying that she made the whole thing up.
Six media professionals associated with Breitbart News have jumped ship
over the Fields affair, and sources at the company told Politico that
more staffers are planning to resign. According to Politico, "The bulk
of them have fired off searing resignation notes, chastising the company for its
lack of support for reporter Michelle Fields, who has filed a police complaint
against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and venting about the site's
pro-Trump bent." Those resigning include Breitbart national security
correspondent Jordan Schachtel, who wrote: "Breitbart News is no longer
a journalistic enterprise, but instead, in my opinion, something resembling an
unaffiliated media Super PAC for the Trump campaign. I signed my contract to
work as a journalist, not as a member of the Donald J. Trump for President media
network." Also resigning was former editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, who wrote: ""In
my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew's mission in order
to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump's
personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News' Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump's bully campaign
manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle." Also resigning
was Shapiro's father, David Shapiro. The first person to jump ship was the
site's spokesperson, Kurt Bardella. Michelle Fields has also resigned.
TIME photographer Chris Morris was placed in a choke-hold and slammed
onto a table during a rally in Virginia, after he attempted to step outside of
the press pen to photograph some protesters. The Department of Homeland Security
inspector general is currently investigating the incident.
Here are Jordan Ray Correll's comments about his experience at a Donald Trump
rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina:
"So, if you know me or my friend, Seth Quackenboss, then you know that we often
get ourselves into ridiculously wacky situations, especially when we're
together. Yesterday was one of those days. We decided to drive down to
Fayetteville in order to hear a certain orange politician speak. Yes, you
guessed it. We went to a Donald Trump rally.
Now, I am not a supporter of Mr. Trump in any way, shape, or form. I'm quite
inclined to a certain berning sensation that I've been experiencing for some
time. But that's beside the point. The point is, we thought that we were in for
a time of jokes and hilarity. And at the beginning, it was. There were a few
speakers before Trump came out and they were not well organized at all. They
were comical. One man, a veteran, said that he had shed blood on 7 continents.
And unless I missed the great Antarctica War, I highly doubt that's true. Let it
be known for the record, that I am not against veterans in any way shape or
form. I just thought that particular comment was funny. Because I doubt he
actually wounded someone in Antarctica. But a more plausible explanation would
be that he was doing penguin research and accidentally pricked a penguin and it
bled. Anyway…
One speaker also said that we needed to get rid of 911 calls and we all need to
handle our problems ourselves. Well...that's highly unlikely. I can't imagine
that people will start forgoing 911 calls when their house in burning down in
order to try and extinguish the fire themselves. But, ya know, it's a nice
thought.
So those were my laughable moments. Trump was about to come out. We had our
signs ready. We were going to go all out. Yelling and screaming and whatnot.
Because, why else were we there if not to join the spectacle? He comes out.
People go crazy. For the first twenty to thirty minutes I sat there with high
expectations of hilarity. After half an hour, my feelings turned extremely grim.
I was scared and upset. Let me explain...
Trump basically said the same few things the whole time. He knows exactly what
will get a cheer from the crowd and he says it. He mentioned his wall several
times. About five or six if I can remember correctly. At one point he said
"We're going to build a wall. And who's going to pay for it?" And the crowd
yelled, "Mexico!" and then they lost their minds. Now, we all know exactly why
this is stupid. So I won't elaborate. It was just very unsettling. He mentioned
ISIS several times. About ten. But not exactly how to stop ISIS. Just comments
like, "We're gonna get ISIS," and "ISIS is going down." Blanket statements. He
did say that for America to win again (any sort of winning, not just against
ISIS) we have to go outside of the law and he isn't afraid to do it. And that's
unsettling for several reasons. But I'm just reporting the facts. And that was
all he said on policy. Completely void of content or substance. Just statements
that would get the crowd cheering.
Now, let's talk about the protesters. There were many. I think throughout the
hour long rally, there were roughly 15-20 groups of protesters. Some of them
were individuals and some were in groups. They popped up throughout the rally
here and there. And some of them were yelling and causing a raucous but some of
them were just standing there with their anti-Trump shirts or their pro-whoever
else shirts. They were all removed. Peaceful or violent.
One man had a shirt that said "Love is the answer," and he was thrown out.
Trump's comment on this man was, "And love is very important but I mean, who's
making love to that guy?" And my stomach churned. A few minutes later, a woman
stood up not far from where the other man was and starting protesting. She was
removed. Trump's comment was, "She was with the other guy. They're actually a
couple. A *clears throat* beautiful *gagging noises* couple." And the crowd
laughed and cheered. It was horrifying.
But out of everything I saw, the crowd was the worst part. I have never seen
more hateful people in my life. Everyone was just filled with so much hatred. If
a protester had a sign, even the peaceful ones, they would take the sign from
them, rip it up, and throw it back at the protesters. Whenever a protester would
get removed, the crowd would yell horrible things. Once, after a protester was
removed, Trump said, "Where are these people coming from? Who are they?" A lady,
sitting not 5 feet from me, said, "Well hopefully when you're president, you'll
get rid of em all!" Get rid of them? Get rid of anyone who opposes Trump? It was
sickening. I felt truly nauseous. And these people loved the protesters. They
loved the drama and the chaos. And Trump fed upon it. It was easily one of the
strangest and uncomfortable things I've ever witnessed. I could just hear the
horrible things being spoken around me and it made my skin crawl.
Needless to say, there was very little laughter on my part. I thought this was
going to be joke...and it was, but for a very different reason.
I implore you, if you're thinking about voting for Trump, reconsider. You are
only promoting chaos and hatred. I witnessed it firsthand. And trust me, this is
not something you want to see in person. This is not what you want to happen to
our country."
My firsthand experience at a Trump rally by Armando
We've all seen the images of Trump rallies on television. How could we not,
given the cable news networks deciding to be All Trump! All The Time! But last
Sunday I had a chance to attend a Trump rally in Boca Raton, and decided to go
take an in-person look.
First, I needed to request a "ticket" to the rally. Not surprisingly, the
process is basically an email collection scam. Anyway, I signed up for my ticket
and headed to the rally on Sunday.
I arrived early and found that many others had done so as well—including
protesters. The protesters were shunted off to a "protest
zone" a good distance from the entrance to the rally. Nonetheless, many persons
wandered over, including a group of counter-protesters.
There was a lot of chanting and shouting between the protesters and
counterprotesters, but there was a legion of police officers who made sure no
one came near each other. Physical altercations were not going to happen,
thankfully.
However, there was also a concerted effort by the authorities to keep any
protesters outside of the event, even when they had tickets for the rally. There
would be no Chicagos in Boca Raton.
Clearly the police decided they would prefer to be criticized for a heavy hand
in keeping potential combatants apart than to have any incidents of violence.
I decided to wander into the event to get my first glimpse of a Trump rally
crowd. I'm not sure what my expectations were as I went in, but I certainly
expected an overwhelmingly white crowd. In fairness, that's certainly not unique
to Donald Trump in Republican circles. Every GOP rally will be overwhelmingly
white. But I guess I was wondering about the "working-class whites" line the
media has been trumpeting.
But before I reached the venue, I ran the gauntlet of the (ahem, "self-funded")
Trump campaign's concessionaires selling Trump stuff.
I'm not exactly sure how campaign finance disclosures handle these types of
things. Can someone buy 10,000 Trump hats, buttons, or shirts?
In any event, they were selling a lot of these at the event. Unless Trump is
just pocketing his share of these sales, this obviously isn't "self funding."
Rather, this is a way of funding the campaign. Worth taking a look at, FEC.
After passing the hawkers I then had to go through security, which was quite
"vigilant," to put it kindly. It was thorough and the process moved slowly.
But I finally got in and immediately needed to put on sunglasses—yes, it was
very, very white. Blindingly white. While there were a few African Americans and
other minorities, they were few and far between. It was an older crowd, which is
the norm in Florida.
The event was scheduled for 7 PM and I walked into the venue around 6:15 PM or
so. It was already a sizable crowd but about half full—probably around 2,500
people at that hour, but the crowd was growing.
Around 6:30 PM, the blaring music was lowered and a speaker was announced and
took the stage. She was a woman who tragically lost her son in a heinous murder.
She told her moving story about how her son left for school in the morning but
did not show up for his after-school job. She was frantic and called the police,
who discovered that her son had been brutally murdered and mutilated.
Finally she revealed that the killer of her son was an "illegal immigrant" and
the crowd exploded. The anger at the fact the murderer was an "illegal
immigrant" was almost stronger than the fact the woman's son had been murdered.
She expressly blamed Marco Rubio for the death of her son. It was rough, and the
crowd was angry. Any protesters revealing themselves right then would have been
at great risk.
But it was a moment that revealed what the Trump movement is all about: Hating
non-white people, especially immigrants.
The energy was high following the grieving mother's speech and the next speaker
was a Jeff Sessions policy guy (Sessions endorsed Trump) who just laid into
Marco Rubio and all things immigrant. A protester emerged then and luckily for
her, was escorted out of the venue without being physically attacked by the
crowd.
But then a funny thing happened. Trump was late. Very late. And they had no more
speakers lined up, so they played the same playlist over and over again. I think
I heard the same songs in the same order at least three times. Boredom and
impatience were setting in.
Finally, around 7:45 PM, an announcement told us "Trump Force One" (I'm not
kidding, that's what he said) has landed! And Trump would be there in a few
minutes. Well, about 20 minutes later, Trump's arriving helicopter buzzed the
crowd and maybe 15 minutes after that, the man himself came out.
His entrance was Las Vegas fight night. All it needed was Michael Buffer. And
the crowd was by then huge—probably 6,000 people. (Trump, of course, said it was
15,000.) And the crowd was excited—but not as excited as they were when the
immigrant hate was being ginned up.
Trump came out and gave his usual spiel: Polls, his plutocratic friends,
terrible deals. His great stuff. How great he is. He was a little light on
immigrant hate, and made a big point of taking credit for avoiding trouble in
Chicago. Personally, I thought he didn't fully have his crowd. They wanted the
red meat. They wanted the hate. Indeed, it was the crowd that brought up Trump's
Wall, with a spontaneous and loud chant of "BUILD THE WALL!"
Trump took their cue and talked about his big beautiful wall that Mexico will
pay for, but then turned back to the issue of how great he is. The crowd agreed,
but seemed to want more hate from Trump.
I left before the end after seeing enough to be able to say what the Trump
movement is—at least at this rally. The Trump movement is older white people
that hate immigrants and other non-whites.
In other words, it is the Republican Party. It is the Republican Party
discarding the dog whistle. It is the Republican Party's id. It is what they've
long wanted the Republican Party to say, loudly and proudly.
It is what the Republican Party has built, especially during the Obama era.
