2016 presidential hopefuls must stand against violence

In the past month, this often farcical election season has taken a grim turn into actual and threatened violence — associated almost entirely with the Donald Trump campaign.

For Trump critics, this is another sign that he is taking us down the path to fascism; meanwhile, his supporters accuse the media of exaggerating trivial incidents while ignoring bully tactics against the Trump campaign. While I find the Trump candidacy appalling, this is one case in which there is plenty of blame — and bad excuses for bad behavior — on both sides.

Just this weekend, the latest incident at a Trump rally featured one of his supporters punching, knocking down and savagely kicking Bryan Sanders, a protester who had a sign with a Confederate flag stamped on Trump’s face. In an inversion of the usual racial politics of the campaign, the assailant, Tony Pettway, is black. Some Trump fans on the Internet argued that he was understandably angered by the use of racist imagery to make a political point. Presumably, few of them would make similar excuses for black campus activists lashing out violently at a conservative who argued in defense of the Confederate flag.

Meanwhile, Trump’s own response to the troubling assault in Tucson, Arizona, fully displayed his willingness to condone violence by his supporters. Speaking to the crowd, he derided the victim as “a disgusting guy” wearing “a Ku Klux Klan hat,” and the protesters in general as “agitators” who “are not good people” and belong in jail.

In fact, it was a different, female protester who wore a white hood, apparently in reference to KKK support for Trump; Sanders, the man who was attacked, wore a shirt with the colors of the American flag. (The claim that he either wore a KKK hood or was with the woman wearing it was also repeated by many pro-Trump Internet posters.)

On a previous occasion, Trump praised a rally attendee who sucker-punched a protester as the latter was being led out and offered to pay the legal fees of his supporters who struck back at disrupters. And, in a CNN interview, he stated point-blank that “there would be riots” if he is denied an automatic GOP nomination because he falls short of the required delegate count, adding, “I wouldn’t lead it but I think bad things would happen.”

Yet it is only fair to note that, not very long ago, many people in the same political camp that now deplores Trump’s violent rhetoric condoned the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore as a response to police abuse and racial injustice. Major left-of-center websites such as Salon and Vox suggested that rioting can be a tool for positive change. When you start using absurd terms like “riot-shaming,” don’t be surprised when the stigma against violence is weakened across the political spectrum.

Today, too, many Trump opponents approve of efforts to shut down his campaign events using force. This past weekend in Arizona, protesters blocked roads and chained themselves to cars to keep people from getting to the Trump rally. In Kansas City, Missouri, anti-Trump protesters also tried to block traffic and threaten police; one of them struck a police horse.

Some argue that Trump is such a danger to the country that we cannot be squeamish about desperate measures to stop him from coming to power. But such measures only play into his hands.

The only way to stop the madness is to take a strong stand against all use of force and intimidation for political ends — particularly by those on your side. Reasonable people must do that before someone gets killed.

Cathy Young is a regular contributor to Reason magazine and Real Clear Politics.