From the midweek edition of the Morning Jolt:
When Do Violent Anti-Trump Protesters Turn Into a Major Story?
No, really, media, you have to start asking questions about the atmosphere of violence and fascism that is cultivated by . . . anti-Trump protesters.
Police in riot gear and mounted patrol units faced off against a violent crowd of protesters outside a Donald Trump campaign event in Albuquerque Tuesday night.
Hours after Trump and some 4,000 of his supporters left the Albuquerque Convention Center, approximately 100 demonstrators remained in downtown.
Smoke grenades were used in an effort to disperse the crowd, while protesters threw rocks, plastic bottles, burning T-shirts and other items at officers.
Albuquerque police said on Twitter late Tuesday that “several” officers were being treated for injuries as a result of being hit by rocks. At least one person was arrested.
Inside the Trump rally, demonstrators shouted, held up banners and resisted removal by security officers. The banners included the messages “Trump is Fascist” and “We’ve heard enough.”
Trump responded with his usual bluster, mocking the protesters by telling them to “Go home to mommy.” . . .
Albuquerque attorney Doug Antoon said rocks were flying through the convention center windows as he was leaving Tuesday night. Glass was breaking and landing near his feet.
“This was not a protest, this was a riot. These are hate groups,” he said of the demonstrators.
Here’s a photo of a protester with a hand-drawn “F*** Trump, Free El Chapo” sign. He’s wearing a “Straight Outta Sinaloa” t-shirt; Sinaloa is one of Mexico’s states on the West Coast. This is about as good an image as the Trump campaign could possibly hope for; I suspect we’ll see the image in future Trump ads. Well done, son of Sinaloa. You’ve completely confirmed Trump fans’ worst suspicions and undermined all of his critics.
We saw this at Occupy Wall Street; we saw this in Black Lives Matter. Heck, you can go back to the anti-war protests and the WTO protests in Seattle. There seems to be this sense in some newsrooms that left-wing protests are somehow inherently less violent, and if there is violence, it’s somehow justified or understandable as a reaction to provocation from the Right.
