Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[Mav]

I'm no Trump fan, and it is politics so there's nothing to be done about it (and Donald adds his own fuel to the fire)..... but one of the concerns about this politics of personality and demonising of a candidate in the States is there are no shortage of 'nut jobs' who might look to other options to stop thmeir campaign.

I think the greater problem is that Trump is dogwhistling to his fans that they should use violence against the press and protesters.  Dogwhistling might be too anaemic a word to describe what he's doing.

So far, there have been 3 outbreaks of serious violence at his rallies, leaving aside frequent manhandling of protesters:

• a press photographer was body-slammed by a secret service agent for the serious offence of stepping out of the pen Trump insists they use to try to photograph the expulsion of protesters.
  
• a female journalist was grabbed by the arm and almost pushed to the ground by Trump's own campaign manager.
  
• a Trump supporter king hit a protester who was being ejected by police and Trump and his staff have refused to criticise or comment on that assault
  

Trump's campaign manager was lucky that the female journo was from Breibart, a right-wing political comment site which is friendly to Trump.  The campaign manager apparently explained he didn't recognise her and thought she was a critic. Briebart has gone soft on the incident.

Trump has said at rallies that he would like to punch protesters in the face and called on his supporters to eject them.  It is well known that white supremacist groups attend his rallies wearing T-shirts promoting their cause.  Is it possible that they'll act?  Why is he so keen to prevent the press photographing or seeing these ejections?

Now you have him orchestrating pledges that are reminiscent of Hitler rallies.

It has all the hallmarks of the infamous calls to arms made by Sarah Palin and others leading up to the Tucson shootings at a Gabby Giffords rally in a shopping centre car park.  Giffords, a congressional Dem, was shot in the head and left with a permanent disability while 6 others, including a Federal court judge, were killed.  Palin had run ads featuring crosshairs and calling for a reload.  Of course, conservatives say this had nothing to do with what happened, just as Trump would say he was just making a whimsical comment as Henry II had once done.

The funny thing is that Trump and his supporters would have no doubt that the inflammatory rhetoric of radical Imans causes their followers to engage in terrorism.