This Thursday, President Donald Trump was set to go to Baltimore, where he’d be speaking at the annual GOP legislative strategy retreat. A passionate protest presence quickly sprung up there, where one Trump supporter was caught on camera shouting in an anti-Trump demonstrator’s face. As a fitting encapsulation of Trump and his base’s utter disconnect from the results of their endless and sometimes violent antagonism of marginalized communities, the not immediately named Trump supporter seemed beside himself over the fact that the protester in question — who was black — didn’t support Trump even though he “signed prison reform legislation!” The protester eventually shouted back that Trump’s a “pedophile.”
Soon, a police officer walked over to try and break up the pair, but not before plenty of verbal barbs were thrown. According to some of those on the scene, the Trump supporter confronted the protester first, apparently. Angrily and very close to the black protester’s face, the Trump supporter — a white guy — railed:
‘He signed prison reform! He’s letting thousands of minorities out of — LISTEN! He’s letting thousands of minorities out of prison, man!’
At that point, as the protester continued to seem completely uninterested in the Trump supporter’s ranting, that police officer walked over, sharing:
‘Hey, hey, hey, if we’re going to do this — if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this peacefully!’
As the police officer and an eventual colleague tried to get the group to simmer down, the protester eventually shouted out:
‘I’m going to talk as loud as his white ass!’
Check it out:
Anti-#Trump protestors and pro-Trump supporters get heated ahead of the president’s visit to #Baltimore – warning – there’s language you may not want to hear. @wbalradio pic.twitter.com/eZGW87dJ3a
— Phil Yacuboski (@WBALPhil) September 12, 2019
After that point, the tussle kept going.
Despite having previously tried to capitalize on the protester’s marginalized community member status to try and turn the man towards Trump, the Trump supporter complained about getting called out as white. The officers — who were both black — kept themselves in between the opposing sides. As if he thought that someone, somewhere cared about what he had to yell, the Trump supporter shouted out that Trump had supposedly personally or something “lowered unemployment to its lowest levels in history” — although as many have pointed out as nausuem, these trends began well before Trump ever entered office, and he’s not personally responsible for keeping them going like he’s got some sort of magic button.
The tussle isn’t the only one that unfolded when Trump and Co. descended on Baltimore as this week drew to a close. One coalition of groups organized an event right outside the hotel where the GOP retreat was and will be taking place, and there was even a balloon depicting Trump as a rat that made an appearance. It was the work of Claude Taylor and his Mad Dog PAC, and featured an image of Trump’s head on a rat-like body. Taylor also brought along a street sign turning Baltimore’s President Street into President Barack Obama Avenue.
Trump has previously claimed that Baltimore was rat and rodent infested and that no human being would want to live there. He’s coming for the local Republican hobnob anyway.
Featured Image via screenshot
