The violence at Donald Trump rallies seems so matter of fact now. Columnists are now coming out to defend Hillary Clinton’s sentiment on many who have joined the Trump revolution.
Violence at Trump rallies
Clinton took a lot of flak for making a verifiable statement, a basket of deplorables. Folks can leave the basket at will yet Trump rally violence shows some won’t.
Every rally has protesters. The issue is how protesters are dealt with when they appear. Donald Trump’s supporters show a level of violence towards the protesters not seeing since the days of the civil rights protest in this country when violence was everywhere. It is evident that Trump’s supporters attending his rallies are in fact different than most Americans.
Both Dana Milbank and Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote articles this week that corroborated the basic tenets of Hillary Clinton’s basket of deplorables comment. They are both must reads.
Dana Milbank’s piece titled “Dana Milbank: Yes, half of Trump supporters are racist” states the reality. He said the following.
Hillary Clinton may have been unwise to say half of Donald Trump’s supporters are racists and other “deplorables.” But she wasn’t wrong. If anything, when it comes to Trump’s racist support, she might have low-balled the number.
Trump, speaking to the National Guard Association of the United States’ annual conference here Monday afternoon, proclaimed himself “deeply shocked and alarmed” about Clinton putting half of his supporters in the “basket of deplorables” — as if anybody, especially Trump, could be shocked by anything this late in the campaign. How dare she, Trump said, “attack, slander, smear, demean these wonderful, amazing people.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece titled “Hillary Clinton Was Politically Incorrect, but She Wasn’t Wrong About Trump’s Supporters” admonished the media for failing to do the numbers. He ends his piece a follows.
Much like Trump’s alleged opposition to the Iraq War, this not an impossible claim to investigate. We know, for instance, some nearly 60 percent of Trump’s supporters hold “unfavorable views” of Islam, and 76 percent support a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We know thatsome 40 percent of Trump’s supporters believe blacks are more violent, more criminal, lazier, and ruder than whites. Two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe the first black president in this country’s history is not American. These claim are not ancillary to Donald Trump’s candidacy, they are a driving force behind it.
When Hillary Clinton claims that half of Trump’s supporters qualify as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” data is on her side. One could certainly argue that determining the truth of a candidate’s claims is not a political reporter’s role. But this is not a standard that political reporters actually adhere to.
While it may seem politically unwise for Hillary Clinton to make the ‘basket of deplorables’ comment, it may have been by design. It is causing the examination of the core of Donald Trump’s supporters. When many of them look in the mirror, they may not like what they see. They may realize that they must reexamine their values and try to be better, more moral people.