President Donald Trump’s time in the national spotlight continues to be defined by violence. A rally he held this week in Ohio turned physical multiple times, including what CNN’s Jim Acosta reports was a scuffle inside the arena after counterprotesters held up a sign proclaiming that “immigrants built America.” According to the prominent journalist, the president’s supporters tried to “rip the sign out of their hands,” which is a tactic Trump’s base has used plenty of documented times at his rallies before. Imagine being the person to violently react to the observation that “immigrants built America,” which is a literal truth — Trump continues to lead his base down an outlandish and dark path.
Check out a video clip of the scene from Acosta, in which the president’s supporters can be heard responding to the presence of the protesters.
Scuffle breaks out in Trump crowd after protesters held up “immigrants built America” sign. Trump supporters tried to rip the sign out of their hands. pic.twitter.com/taCRKxoCqe
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2019
Trump himself responded to some protesters who popped up during his Thursday speech, insisting that those in attendance “must have a Democrat mayor” and demanding that law enforcement “come on” and get the situation under control. In other words — again right in line with the most outlandish tendencies from him and his base — he was casting opposition to their steamroller agenda as some kind of secret conspiracy. He’s done the same in reference to the Russia investigation and in before claiming that various groups of protesters against his agenda have been funded by George Soros or something along those lines.
Outside the arena, there was also tension running high. At one point, a truck full of Trump supporters pulled up to a spot where some counterprotesters were demonstrating and one got out and repeatedly punched an older man in the face. The assailant — 29-year-old Dallas Frazier — was taken into custody on assault charges, and he was due for a court appearance early Friday. The victim Mike Alter was apparently going to get checked out at the hospital following the altercation, according to a reporter on the scene.
All of these incidents have proceeded in the wake of Trump basing his whole political platform on antagonism and harassment of marginalized communities. He’s promised to build a border wall blocking off Mexico, and he has insisted without any overwhelming evidence that immigrant communities pose some kind of special security threat to the United States. In fact, native-born Americans are arrested at a significantly higher rate than undocumented immigrants — just look at the ethnic background of any number of the mass shooters who’ve rocked America in recent months and years to see circumstantial evidence of this.
Still, Trump continues. Indicating just how far off into the furor of their hatred that Trump and his supporters really are, at his Ohio rally this past Thursday, more than two and a half years after he faced her in an election, he criticized Hillary Clinton and the crowd broke into a chant of “lock her up!” as Trump rally crowds have loved to do in the past. There’s really no end to the madness with this guy ahead of 2020.
Featured Image via screenshot
