Big Bernie Rally In Raleigh; Big Trump Rumble In Chicago**
[**This title has been revised in light of later information; the outbreak was not really a “riot”; but it came close, and the events were very revealing.]
Where did Friday’s Trump chaos & violence in Chicago come from?
As for the rumble, I see two sources: the office of Trump’s staffer (or Trump himself) who decided to put his rally right next to a large, culturally & religiously diverse urban campus. And two, the action and words of one John McGraw, who put into action what Trump had often said about protesters: he sucker-punched Kareem Jones, a noisy but nonviolent protester at his Wednesday Fayetteville rally — and then bragged about it:
John McGraw, who put Trump’s words into action in Fayetteville NC.
“You bet I liked it. Knocking the hell out of that big mouth,” he said of punching 26-year-old Rakeem Jones. Asked why he chose to throw a punch, McGraw, said, “We don’t know if he’s ISIS. We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American, cussing me. If he wants it laid out, I laid it out.” And on whether Jones deserved to be hit, McGraw declared, “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist.”
McGraw was an “unorganized” assailant, who was later arrested by local authorities. But his action reflected many many things Trump has said over the last months. His target, Kareem Jones, was outnumbered several thousand to one in Fayetteville, and he did not strike back or hit anyone.
But what if the numbers were closer to even? That’s how it was Friday: first in St. Louis, where more than 30 were arrested amid numerous fights at a Trump rally there. And then Friday night in Chicago, near the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago. And we saw what happened: a near-riot, and cancellation of the rally.
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio immediately started talking about “professional agitators”as behind the huge protest. It looked to me a lot more like a social media enabled flash mob, built with Facebook and Twitter on the accumulated outrage of a diverse, mainly young constituency which was handed their target on a platter, not even a subway ride away.
The Trump campaign statement on the rally said: “Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date. Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”
Less than two hours after the Chicago cancellation, Trump was interviewed live on CNN. I took notes of that exchange, and a summary follows.
Trump was on CNN, live at 9:03 PM (the transcript or video is not yet on CNN’s site), interviewed by phone by reporter Don Lemon. These quotes are summarized from memory, typed as the conversation proceeded, but within quotation marks the words are exactly as I heard them.
Q. Why the outbreak tonight?
A. Trump: “I don’t wanna see anybody hurt. So I think we made the right decision . . . even though our freedom of speech was violated.”
Q. What do you make of what we saw?
A. “We have a very divided country . . . and it’s terrible. . . . “Our jobs being taken away, sent to Mexico and other places.” We have a lot of problems . . . unemployment rate much closer to 25 percent.”
Q. Do you think that caused this scuffle tonight?
A. “Yeah, it’s largely economic problem, absolutely.”
Q. What about your tone & comments punching them etc.?
A. “I don’t take responsibility. Nobody’s been hurt at our rallies. Or seriously hurt.” We’ve had a tremendous number of large rallies, and “some protesters stand up and are very, very abusive, sometimes unbelievably abusive . . . and overall we’ve been very mild with protesters.” The police have been great guys.
Q. Have you done anything to create a tone where this riot tonight could happen?
A. I hope my tone is not like that. My basic tone is that of securing our borders, getting people jobs, including African-American men. So I would say we’ve had tremendous success in the rallies. There’s great love in those stadiums. But at the same time, when there’s a clash . . . .
A. In St. Louis we had 7 or 8 incidents, but nobody was hurt, we had a good time, I hope the protesters had a good time.”
Q. You have said of protesters, “Knock the crap out of them,” “punch them in the face,” “take them out on stretchers.” Do you regret any of it?
A. “No I don’t regret it at all, there’s been some protesters who were very violent and abusive.”
Q. Reporters are saying it’s your supporters who attack protesters not vice versa. What do you say to that?
A. Not true. The protesters included some “very tough guys,” swinging and hitting people, and some turned on them and then hit back, but then we got bad publicity about it.
Q. Any regrets about anything you’ve said in your campaign?
A. We’ve had great success, I have “no regret whatsoever about [talking about] illegal immigration . . . . I’m very proud of that.”
A. He also expressed no regrets about anything he said about protesters: “Some of these were very rough tough guys. They did damage, but nobody talks about that. But with most protesters we just have fun.”
Q. Moving forward, what are you and your campaign going to do about this?
A. I’m not a person who wants to see violence. These people stopped the right of free speech for people who wanted to be peaceful. About these protesters, “Protesting is their career. Protesting is a business for them. I know more about protesters and protesting than you’ll ever know, Don. . . . I’ve had protesters all my life and I’ve never had any problem.”
Q. Will you tell your supporters to ease up on protesters?
A. “Well, the protesters, some of them are very violent.”
Q. I asked you about your tone, you have inspired thousands & thousands of people, If your words can inspire them to cheer, can’t they also inspire them to violence?
A. Well, I certainly don’t incite violence and I certainly don’t condone violence. . . . and it’s not acceptable to me.
In Other Campaign News:
Earlier Friday, and to little notice except in local media, Sen. Bernie Sanders held an overflow rally in Raleigh NC at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
Part of the Bernie overflow crowd, Raleigh NC, Friday.
The rally was vintage Bernie: boisterous, enthusiastic, the crowd was younger, mostly white but not entirely. Many families were on hand in the warm weather, and the line of supporters stretched nearly all the way around the large block on which the performing arts center sits.
Well over a thousand people were unable to get into the packed 2000+ seat auditorium, and they gathered on the front lawn. Sanders came out and spoke to them from a terrace, to repeated cheers, before his main, hour-long speech inside.
Bernie repeated his standard themes: the system is rigged for the rich, who control normal politicians through a corrupt campaign finance system; he’ll pursue free tuition at state colleges, make Obamacare into single payer system, break up the big banks, spend big money on infrastructure jobs, and be very cautious about foreign wars. He calls his program a “political revolution.”
There were many cheers, and no disruptions or protests.
Bernie speaking outside the Duke Energy Center, Raleigh NC. He’s the white-haired guy next to the sign.
A new poll from NC’s High Point University released Friday says that Hillary Clinton appears to maintain a solid lead, 58 percent to 34 percent for Sanders. Sanders did not predict an upset to match his stunner in Michigan earlier this week, but repeated his declaration that as he and his ideas get better known, they will do better.
Bernie is way ahead on this tee shirt.
Sanders may be behind in North Carolina; but he’s not slowing down because of that. He held three large rallies in Florida on Thursday, and by evening Friday he was also speaking (peacefully but to a very large enthusiastic crowd) in Chicago, following another rally in Toledo, Ohio. All four states have primaries on Tuesday March 15.
If It’s Friday, this must be Raleigh. Or Toledo?(No, it’s Raleigh, Bernie. Toledo is later.)
This Just In!
Never mind.
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One thought on “Big Bernie Rally In Raleigh; Big Trump Rumble In Chicago”
Great job, once again! I’m glad you got to hear Bernie Sanders speak. I have been thinking recently of the one time I literally said as much as, “Pleased to meet you,” to Bernie Sanders. It would have probably have been shortly after his first successful run for the US House. (He came up short in his first attempt, in part due to vote-splitting but probably more because of his stand in favor of an assault weapons ban.) I had gone shopping in Burlington (Vermont) with my mother, and we had gone our separate ways for awhile. She was just a minute late coming to the intersection on Church Street where we were to meet. I soon found out why: there she was, walking down Church Street with Bernie, whom she had seen up near the head of the street. My mother passed away a matter of weeks before he was elected to the Senate. She would no doubt be delighted to know of his Presidential run, although of course I have no idea whether she would have thought that having the qualities to become a successful congressman or senator would necessarily translate into being Presidential material.
There is a bit of a back story to this. Her father voted for Eugene V. Debs and his successor(s), and her mother for FDR et al. at a time when Vermont was thoroughly Republican. My grandmother lived long enough to see Bernie’s early career with the Liberty Union Party but had moved on, so to speak, from that period of her life. Overall, there was a significant amount of “baggage” with that side of my family, which my mother and her siblings processed in different ways. Of the girls, she was one of the most sympathetic to Sanders and his ideas, but other members of the extended family who are still alive have “felt the Bern.” The daughter of one of my cousins, i.e., a great-granddaughter of the grandfather in question, put up a Sanders lawn sign in another state and posted the photo on her Facebook page. I could only say that her great-grandfather would have been proud. Given Sanders’s admiration for some of the policies of FDR, maybe my grandmother would have supported her husband, just once. Who knows? (I voted by absentee ballot for Sanders in the Vermont primary; my father is still living and also voted in the Vermont primary, but I am not at liberty to discuss his opinions on the matter.)
Great job, once again! I’m glad you got to hear Bernie Sanders speak. I have been thinking recently of the one time I literally said as much as, “Pleased to meet you,” to Bernie Sanders. It would have probably have been shortly after his first successful run for the US House. (He came up short in his first attempt, in part due to vote-splitting but probably more because of his stand in favor of an assault weapons ban.) I had gone shopping in Burlington (Vermont) with my mother, and we had gone our separate ways for awhile. She was just a minute late coming to the intersection on Church Street where we were to meet. I soon found out why: there she was, walking down Church Street with Bernie, whom she had seen up near the head of the street. My mother passed away a matter of weeks before he was elected to the Senate. She would no doubt be delighted to know of his Presidential run, although of course I have no idea whether she would have thought that having the qualities to become a successful congressman or senator would necessarily translate into being Presidential material.
There is a bit of a back story to this. Her father voted for Eugene V. Debs and his successor(s), and her mother for FDR et al. at a time when Vermont was thoroughly Republican. My grandmother lived long enough to see Bernie’s early career with the Liberty Union Party but had moved on, so to speak, from that period of her life. Overall, there was a significant amount of “baggage” with that side of my family, which my mother and her siblings processed in different ways. Of the girls, she was one of the most sympathetic to Sanders and his ideas, but other members of the extended family who are still alive have “felt the Bern.” The daughter of one of my cousins, i.e., a great-granddaughter of the grandfather in question, put up a Sanders lawn sign in another state and posted the photo on her Facebook page. I could only say that her great-grandfather would have been proud. Given Sanders’s admiration for some of the policies of FDR, maybe my grandmother would have supported her husband, just once. Who knows? (I voted by absentee ballot for Sanders in the Vermont primary; my father is still living and also voted in the Vermont primary, but I am not at liberty to discuss his opinions on the matter.)