"Next time, we might have to kill him."

Ah yes, you are right, of course. When I speak of protesting in force, I mean enough bodies to make the random asshole think twice about throwing that punch. But certainly, a thug here or an asshole there, does not remotely imply that the majority of Trump supporters are ready to run out and commit acts of violence. Where does this wisdom go when you speak of Syrians, I wonder.

it does reinforce what his followers already think, but it's not like they had their doubts.

OTOH, the old asshole was hardly an isolated exception. There've been such behavior at pretty much every rally he holds. Protesters show up and peacefully hold up signs, Trump fans abusively throw them out, and as they are in the act Trump says from the mike "that's great, throw them out"

At one rally, members of his SS detail roughly tossed protesters, at another he brought a couple of bozos who assaulted protesters up on stage afterwards to congratulate and thank them.

It's a brilliant move on his part. One of the things driving this election cycle is the complete lack of reaction to SJW's, BLM protesters, Occupy protesters, and campus SJW protesters. What he's doing is showing how simple it is to stand up to them, just by punching them in the face when they get all loud and disruptive. That's what adult males are supposed to have done to make sure the young males are properly socialized.

Funny, I thought you couldn't see my posts? Nova hadn't edited the user link out of it.

I think the issue here is your dismissal of the objections of the protester and simply referring to his actions as "flipping people off" while totally ignoring the older man's accusations of ISIS membership and being Un-American, which was clearly motivated by the protester's ethnicity. Give your bigoted views elsewhere and your downplaying of the actions of the old man, is it any wonder someone might conclude that you are willing to look the other way at the older man's offensive remarks?

Stop lying and pretending you did not endorse violence. Look, I am glad you thought better of it and walked it back but that does not change the fact that ypu wanted to use violence for political ends. You are way closer to a fascist then many of the people you slander with your Godwins.

Agitators should be ejected as their sole purpose is to disrupt. There is nothing wrong with that. I do object to violence unless the agitators resist the authorities in their lawful duties then proportionate force is justified as in any law enforcement situation. If it is a private event, as most political rallies are, then you should be ejected for disrupting. That goes for all parties.

I hope you're being sarcastic. I don't care how disruptive people are, unless I am physically in danger I do not have the right to decide who gets punched in the face, because next time it might be me! Sorry, grown men need to stay home if they can't behave themselves in public.

Yeah, yeah, everybody else is lying, everybody else is wrong. Why don't you go for a walk on the 5, right about where those immigrant crossing signs are. Look for a big truck and jump in front of it.

Or, just quote where I called for violence. Go on, post the statement, don't wrap it in your own personal interpretation. Yeah, you can't, so shut the fuck up.

He's serious, but you're right.

At least one Founding Father said that punching people in the face might be an important right.

Here's he's discussing the press, which acts like a court that accuses, tries, and convicts people.

Of the Checks proper to be established against the Abuse of Power in these Courts.

Hitherto there are none. But since so much has been written and published on the federal Constitution, and the necessity of checks in all other parts of good government has been so clearly and learnedly explained, I find myself so far enlightened as to suspect some check may be proper in this part also; but I have been at a loss to imagine any that may not be construed an infringement of the sacred liberty of the press. At length, however, I think I have found one that, instead of diminishing general liberty, shall augment it; which is, by restoring to the people a species of liberty, of which they have been deprived by our laws, I mean the liberty of the cudgel. In the rude state of society prior to the existence of laws, if one man gave another ill language, the affronted person would return it by a box on the ear, and, if repeated, by a good drubbing; and this without offending against any law. But now the right of making such returns is denied, and they are punished as breaches of the peace; while the right of abusing seems to remain in full force, the laws made against it being rendered ineffectual by the liberty of the press.

My proposal then is, to leave the liberty of the press untouched, to be exercised in its full extent, force, and vigor; but to permit the liberty of the cudgel to go with it pari passu. Thus, my fellow-citizens, if an impudent writer attacks your reputation, dearer to you perhaps than your life, and puts his name to the charge, you may go to him as openly and break his head. If he conceals himself behind the printer, and you can nevertheless discover who he is, you may in like manner way-lay him in the night, attack him behind, and give him a good drubbing. Thus far goes my project as to private resentment and retribution. But if the public should ever happen to be affronted, as it ought to be, with the conduct of such writers, I would not advise proceeding immediately to these extremities; but that we should in moderation content ourselves with tarring and feathering, and tossing them in a blanket.​

That was from Benjamin Franklin. Trump is hearkening back to our founding principles when he says "punch them in the face!"

If that were truly the case, then the old man should have gotten punched in the face when he was younger - hell, all the idiots at any Trump rally should be punched in the face by your logic.

It's a good think most people don't make decisions based on your logic.

peaceful protests with signs is not "disruptive" - Mr. Manly Man ought to be able to handle a little quiet disagreement but he actively encourages (in his direct quotes) a violent response.

When removal does become necessary, professional peace officers, behaving professionally, is all that is required - not violent retribution from the average citizen.

Flipping people the bird and shouting obscenities is. Stop pretending his goal was not to agitate. That ia perfectly clear.

Again, how many times do you need me to keep saying he deserves to be charged before you will stop pretending people have not said that? It is getting tiresome.

Maybe so, but if someone can't show restraint and resorts to violence in the face of such provocation, they're a pretty shitty person.

That said, if Dinner spouts racism IRL like he does on the board, I won't be complaining if someone punches him in the mouth....

And that didn't happen at all.

The old man punched the guy. Should be charged of course.

The protester continued up the stairs to the top. Honestly I personally would have jumped the old man so kudos to the protester for not reacting to the punch.

At the top of the stairs for whatever reason the protester turns around and moves back towards the stairs. Not the smartest thing to do when you're being escorted by cops. The cops do not know what you're going to do. The situation is already tense so yes they took him down.

And the cops were in the wrong in that they should have immediately collared the old man and dragged him out of there in handcuffs.

I'm no Trump supporter but get your facts straight. The police did not immediately take the black guy down because he got punched. After he was punched you clearly see him walk all the rest of the way to the top of the stairs unmolested by any police officer. He was taken down because he turned around and tried to go back down the stairs.

Putting aside all the other crap.....

Those protesters were not there to peacefully protest.

The Washington Post has an article on Trump voters that's interesting. It's behind a paywall but if you click your browser's stop button just after it loads you'll miss the redirect to the subscription screen.

Trump’s voters aren’t authoritarians, new research says. So what are they?

Watch out, the authoritarians are coming!

That’s been the alarm, after recent reports that scoring high in authoritarianism was the strongest predictor that someone would support Donald Trump. “Authoritarian” has some strongly negative connotations. So it’s no wonder that anti-Trump pundits from Nicholas Frankovich to David Brooks have been quick to repeat this finding. What better way to equate Trump with Hitler?

But in our research, we find no evidence that Trump supporters are any more “authoritarian” (at least by common measures) than those who like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) or even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Instead, Trump’s supporters are distinctive in another way: They are true populists.​

In the old days journalists and pundits weren't so disconnected from reality on the ground that they had to conduct "research" to find out what regular Americans were thinking. This is part of the problem that explains Trump.

Anyway, the article includes a nice big graph.



Lot's of insights can be gleaned from the graphs.

Trump supporters love America, Sanders supporters don't.

Cruz supporters are elitists who would be pretty happy bringing back the Spanish Inquisition, and they're not pro-American (which explains why they're voting for a Canadian).

Rubio supporters are extremely elitist (though many of them may have ended up with Rubio because Jeb!'s out and Romney's not in yet.

Kasich supporters don't have any strong feelings to express, while Hillary supporters are afraid to express any strong feelings because they don't want to end up on a missing person's list.

Yep. A very shitty person.

In fact there's a whole lot of shitty people on both sides of the political divide.

Wow. What are the odds of there being two 19 year olds with that name?

I grew up with a Rusty Shackleford. I think all the Shackleford clan's men are named Rusty.

These protesters are kinda dumb. You really want to pretend you're a fan until after the show starts. That's when you get rowdy.

Then you can do things like this:

Lovely senior citizens Trump attracts.....

Yeah, the gotcha crowd photos are driving his support even higher. The elites and media don't understand that they might as well be screaming to their children that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are degenerates who will lead them away from Christ and into a life of sin and debauchery. The "social rebels" in the media are extreme conformists, afraid to express any opinion that isn't widely shared. Their codes of acceptable belief and behavior are even more rigid than that in the 50's, and they can't understand anyone who doesn't share that code because they long ago quit talking to such people and started calling them names.

watch the video. He flipped off the crowd AS the were taunting him WHILE he was being escorted out.

NO report he was doing so BEFORE the started forcing him to leave.

not saying BECAUSE he got punched, just saying that they should never have let it escalate to that. No reason that many cops could not manage to get him out of the room respectfully rather than in restraint. He was the victim of assault and surely professionals know what to do in such a situation.

then there should be plenty of their violent behavior before the cops intervened.