We recently discussed how stories of violence on conservatives and Trump supporters often receive limited attention. The common narrative is that President Donald Trump is the source of violent speech and violent acts in society. The inverse does not fit that narrative. The latest such example is found in New Hampshire where Patrick Bradley, 34, is accused of assaulting a 15-year-old Trump supporter and two adults at a polling site. This follows another college attack on conservatives at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The boy had just seen Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle before joining others at the polling booth. Bradley challenged the boy wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat at a polling location at Windham High School. He slapped the boy across the face and, when two adults tried to intervene, he assaulted them. He also tied to destroy the tent and Trump signs. He is charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct.
What is most disturbing about this story is that the mother later said that she “was apprehensive about him wearing the MAGA hat, because we know it can provoke and we know people don’t like Trump.” That is a sad statement about our politics when a young man who is politically aware and active should have to hide his support to avoid being attacked.
Another anti-conservative attack occurred in the University of California system which has long been criticized for the intolerance of pro-life and conservative activists. College Republicans were attacked on the Santa Cruz campus, which was captured on videotape.
Too much hatred, incitement and actual violence on both sides. Our nation is being ripped apart. The president rather than uniting us and seeking to lead nation is Divider-In-Chief. His supporters refuse to acknowledge the hate he spews as mass killings continue to mount, attacks against people of other faiths and immigrants escalate and for a day or so he may tamp it down. As long as he’s president we will have Americans pitted against Americans and drown in a toxic stew of hatred.
They refuse to acknowledge your fantasies. They’re your fantasies, not ours.
BS and total ignorance , Richard— the classic “everybody does it, huh?
Horse-Sh-t. Leftist media, along with hate groups like ANTIFA have divided us, Not Trump. The President has finally taught Republicans to fight back against the Democrats long-standing, Disgusting, Identity Politics!
Are you blind deaf AND stupid? Trump is none of those things it was OBAMA that divided this contry
Just look at that douche. Poster boy for pussy antifa clowns. 2 to 1 he lives with mom. Nice eye brows clown.
I sure wish someone would have shot the aggressor about 45 times so he would have died naturally!
Someone forgot to tell this clown that long hair is out and razor cuts are in.
I’d really love to see honest statistics about what percentage of these attacks/confrontations are happening to conservatives vs. the rest of the population? Are conservatives the only ones under attack or is it more of a case of dog bites man? None of this excuses Trump actually calling for violence and approving of it when it occurs.
“None of this excuses Trump actually calling for violence and approving of it when it occurs.”
***********************
When did that happen?
Multiple times at his rallies; promising to pay the legal fees of those who got in trouble,
“Knock the crap out of them, I’ll ay the legal fees.” Telling cops to be “not so gentle” with those being put in the back of cars. He rants when protesters are being dragged out of his rallies adding, “Get ’em out of here.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/03/10/trump-protester-punched-at-nc-rally
Activists attacked people at a Trump rally and tried to disrupt the event. Get him out of here is not the same as “make a crowd and make sure they know they are not welcome anywhere anymore.”
Are Democrats afraid to leave the house wearing political clothing, nationwide? Are they afraid to express their political beliefs on college campuses across America? Afraid to speak about politics on social media?
A growing number of Republicans are. That’s a problem, Enigma. Denying it exists won’t solve it. Or are you just OK with it because it’s Democrats doing the assaults?
No matter what you say, the fact remains that there is no nationwide effort to harass and threaten Democrats on college campuses, on the street, or anywhere else. The trend is clearly Democrats being the aggressors. While one could find isolated incidents of Republicans behaving badly, there is no similar nationwide trend.
Democrats used to be afraid to wear clothing making political statements, so much so they wore hoods to cover their faces. Many of them became disgusted with the Democrats in the 1960s and became Republicans (but still wore the hoods. Now the atmosphere is such they holdntheir rallies on national TV and wear hats.
Enigma, you make things up.
Have someone read that last post by enigmainblackcom again to you Allan.
Fishwings Enigma said: ” became disgusted with the Democrats in the 1960s and became Republicans” They didn’t.
They never switched parties.
Enigma:
The KKK Democrats did not wear hoods because they were afraid to wear political clothing. They wore hoods to prevent being identified engaging in murder and domestic terrorism.
The South did not go Republican until decades after the CRA, and it still voted in President Bill Clinton.
You ignore my point. There is no nationwide trend of Democrats afraid to wear political clothing or speak their mind on college campuses. No nationwide trend of terrorizing invited Democrat speakers at universities.
The trend is clear, and Democrats need to clean up their act.
What political clothing would Democrats wear? The Confederate Flag, Swastikas, and MAGA hats are taken by your side. I’ll answer my own question, Democrats are quite comfortable wearing certain items in places where they feel safe. Those might include BLM shirts, rainbow flags, gay pride shirts, Jewish yarmulkes, all of those make one statistically more likely to be Democrats but not necessarily so. Then again, any of those can get you killed if in the wrong place at the wrong time, not necessarily for being Democrats, but for existing. A few posts back in this thread, Ballgame 17 issued a veiled death threat against presumably Democrats he wants revenge against. For all the railing against Antifa, Right Wing Militias outnumber them greatly. It might be stupid for Republicans to align themsevelse outwardly with racists but it’s still safer.
“What political clothing would Democrats wear? The Confederate Flag, Swastikas, and MAGA ”
Enigma, let me ask you some questions. Wasn’t the Republican Party abolishonist? Wasn’t a civil war at least in part fought over slavery? Where were the slaves? If the slaves were in the South doesn’t that give ownership of the Confederate flag to Democrats?
Swastikas: Doesn’t Nazi, National SOCIALISM tell you something.
MAGA: That means Make America Great Again. Shouldn’t all Americans wish that? Do you want Democrats to wear a MADA, Make America Disagreeable Again hat?
For you Allan, I’m going to do a post about the history of the Republican Party. It’s admirable beginnings and its fight to end slavery. Its insistence in leaving federal troops in Southern locations to help the “freedmen,” maintaining their safety and ensuring they had the right to vote. The freed slaves in turn were loyal Republicans. Then, in order to win a contested Presidential election in 1876, they turned their backs on the slaves. I don’t want to give it all away here but let’s just say they started on a slippery slope that puts them where they are today. The Party of voter suppression and welcoming to white netionalists and white supremacists. I hope you appreciate all the rightful praise I give them for their early history. But if a mass murderer once sang in the church choir as a youth, at some point you have to stop trying to take credit for those early years.
Enigma, I have seen your work and it is clear that your mind once made up cannot be changed so instead of a history lesson I expect you will change history.
Take note I have no love for either party. I love freedom and the Constitution. Whomever provides those two things is the one I follow. Right now the Democrats don’t believe in either.
Took me a minute Allan because unlike yourself, I actually do research. Hear you are, warts and highlights, although mostly warts:
https://medium.com/@williamspivey/the-once-great-republican-party-and-its-decline-into-dysfunction-a549ec670e97?source=friends_link&sk=18362bdc80e5391c578cc25c3f6227a7
Enigma, that is what you call research? I would say it’s more like confirmation bias. No wonder your opinions are lacking scholarship. You write reasonably well, but write with a very one sided incomplete data set that results in the story you wish to be told which is not a real accounting of what happened and neglects the time frames of the past which completely negates much of what you say.
You know you didn’t really read it. Enjoy your day.
“You know you didn’t really read it. Enjoy your day.”
Enigma, actually I did starting off reading it like I would read any editorial I had put away to read. As I read it I recognized that it would be vastly incomplete and point one in the direction desired by the writer instead of in a neutral direction so that conclusions could be reasonably drawn by the reader. Like all other editorials that do that type of thing I read the remainder a lot quicker. If you hadn’t been the one to write it I probably would have tossed it before getting to the end but in your case I wanted to see how you worked towards completion so I plodded on. Did I learn history from this piece? No, because its incompleteness distorted history. That is probably how you learned your history when you were young so today whatever history you know on the subject is warped.
A long, general repudiation without disputing any individual facts. The Republicans are nearly the exact opposite of what they were in the beginning. The claims some still make to be “The Party of Lincoln” is based only on nostalgia. If you disagree with anything I’ve written, be specific in your rebuttal, argue facts, though they’re not in your favor. If I wrote about the Democratic Party, it would start out horrible to them and end up less so but nowhere near praise. The thing that makes them better is who they’re compared to at present.
“A long, general repudiation without disputing any individual facts.”
Enigma, No facts are needed. You wrote a history that was more opinion than history and you chose the facts that met you story line and dismissed those that didn’t. I am not sure all your facts are even correct when historical perspective is taken into account.
Feel free to point out any fact you disagree with? Otherwise it’s just a blanket dismissal. BTW, is this a new legal theory that a fact isn’t a fact if “historical perspective” isn’t taken into account? I thought I gave Republicans great credit for being ahead of the curve in their early years. Those must have been the facts I got right.
“it’s just a blanket dismissal”
Enigma, I said it was reasonably well written but not a type of scholarly research because your research filtered out things you didn’t want in your story. Confirmation bias seems to run rampant in most things you write.
“a fact isn’t a fact if…”
A fact is a fact but but the meaning behind the fact depends on how you draw the picture. A fact might be that you gave $200 to someone else that needed it. In a story that can show a charitable individual until one hears elsewhere that the needy person said your money or your life. You leave out those parts and that distorts your history lesson.
Still a blanket dismissal. Unless you are pointing out missing facts or distortions, all you’re saying is I’m wrong without a why.
Here’s what a former Republican had to say in response:
“Nothing but facts.
I was Republican from the very early 1970s until 2010. (My high school senior high school project was a painting of Richard Nixon!)
I earnestly believed that we Republicans were the party of Lincoln and Civil Rights. Earnestly believed it. Would die believing that we Republicans single-handedly passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thought that it was entirely mysterious how Black Americans could not see that the party of Nixon and Reagan and Bush would be good for them.
I’ve changed since then, and honestly it was the eruption of vocal racism in my party meetings about Barack Obama that did it. (I’m truly sorry I’m so slow.) People I respected said vile things to approving laughter. I had not voted for Obama in 2008, thinking him to be untested (and of course, a Democrat!).
His ability to manage the hostility of white people and a crashing economy, and to do so with grace and humor and patience, made me rethink a lot of things.
I voted for my first Democrat since 1974 in the 2010 midterms. Not all Democrats — but a few.
By 2012 I had abandoned the party that I had grown up in and supported financially for years. What I believed about the Republicans — my party, my home, my people — was entirely wrong. I was as wrong as I could be, believing in the stories that were fed to me about the party being the party of truth and law and God.
I’m sorry that I added to that for four decades. I can’t say that ignorance is an excuse, and I am working to make amends.
But oh how deeply I was fooled, and how much my hope for doing the good obscured the reality of the deeply embedded racism of the party that I once was proud to be identified with.”
Enigma, perhaps you go to extremes because what I have read from you generally sounds extreme. I am basically an independent that believes in the Constitution and our American Republic. I believe in federalism and the principles of a free market while caring about people and families. I don’t care what race you are or what education you have. I care about character and ability. Mine is a relatively simple philosophy that doesn’t change with the wind. In recent years the Democratic Party has gone off the walls and seems to be controlled more by radicals than by sane people.
Listening to your most recent missive I think you draw conclusions based on how you feel rather than solid principles. Then you create your story to justify whatever you say or do.
Copperheads
Peace Democrats typically came from one of three backgrounds: strict constructionists in understanding the Constitution, people of Southern birth or heritage who now lived in the lower Midwest and or immigrants who had suffered from nativists’ hostility.
The conservatives, as they called themselves, had been in evidence since the beginning of the war. Some in Congress had denounced Lincoln from early on. But their visibility and activism grew as the war ground through its second year. In neighborhoods around the country, skittish Republicans reported that their dissident neighbors were calling Lincoln names, drilling in the woods and in some cases huzzahing for Jefferson Davis.
The peace men insisted that talk of the war being for the Union was untrue; the war, they said, was really about freeing slaves. When Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, conservatives both crowed about the accuracy of their interpretation of the war and raged that white men should die for the benefit of blacks.
The dissenters had no problem with slavery. They considered African-Americans something less than human, a subpar species fit for bondage. They also feared freedmen would come North and take jobs from white men. The racism that shot through their rhetoric was extreme, even by the standards of their own time.
Republicans termed them “Copperheads,” after the poisonous snake. Another meaning for a “copperhead” at the time was the penny, which was made of copper. On one side of the penny was the head of Lady Liberty. Because they were deeply concerned about constitutional freedoms, Copperheads took to making pins of pennies, but with Lady Liberty being the featured side. They would wear these in their lapels to show where their political loyalties lay.
By January 1863, their assaults on Lincoln, combined with the poor performance of the armies, were taking a toll on civilian morale. Midwesterners spoke openly about seceding and establishing another new country or aligning with the Confederate States of America.
Lincoln’s critics were harsh, uncompromising and relentless. They said Lincoln was a tyrant, bent on amassing power and ruining democracy. They demanded an immediate end to hostilities, believing contrary to all available evidence that the Southern states would return to the Union if only Lincoln would stop the shooting. They wanted to keep slavery.
– NY Times
You mean the veritas staged activists sent to disrupt Trump rallies you ignoramus!
Get a grip. Grow up.
Get back to us when a local volunteer for Ted Cruz tries to take out a couple dozen Democratic Congressmen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting
I’d really love to see honest statistics about what percentage of these attacks/confrontations are happening to conservatives vs. the rest of the population? None of this excuses Trump actually calling for violence and approving of it when it occurs.
Well that’s telling. On one hand you need to see honest statistics to inform you of what appears to be anecdotally true, and on the other hand you assert as true something lacking any anecdotal evidence. You’re expecting to see something you are ill-equipped to accept.
I asserted Trump’s statements to be true as I’ve personally seen them made. Are you saying he hasn’t made the statements? There is video from multiple occasions. I asserted nothing about who is verbally/physically attacked more. I have great doubt that the poor conservatives are under assault while the mean snowflakes are not but I’d honestly like to see the stats. They may not prove what you apparently think they do.
Since it’s already saved from my reply to Mespo:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/03/10/trump-protester-punched-at-nc-rally
That’s it? You don’t need statistics to denounce the perpetrators of violence. You can try to blame Trump, but if the President’s words were such a force, you wouldn’t be looking for statistics. You’d be citing the evidence proving his loyal followers are moved to violence.
Finding people who claim Trump inspired them to violence is easy. You accepting any of their claims is the hard part.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/pipe-bomber-cesar-sayoc-s-lawyers-named-trump-their-defense-ncna1040201
Good for you to find a nut making that claim. Yup, this story was all over the MSM and he was justly convicted. Keep looking and you may find another one; just as crazy and just as deserving a conviction. Still no where near the rate that Trump supporters are assaulted and certainly no excuse for your failure to condemn all acts of violence, regardless of who commits it. That’s on you.
I do condemn all acts of violence, I just don’t believe only Republicans are being attacked. I would like to know what the real rate is. You have already made up your mind.
I do condemn all acts of violence,
Sure you do, just not in this thread.
You have already made up your mind.
Nope. Like you, I’d be interested to know the real rate. But unlike you, I won’t fail to denounce these acts of violence regardless of their political motivations.
I do condemn all acts of violence,
Sure you do, just not in this thread.
__________________________________
That is a bizarre reply. You just provided the evidence that he did.
Sure you do, just not in this thread. [sarc off]
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889
“Finding people who claim Trump inspired them to violence is easy.”
—–
“The Devil Made Me Do It.” is a great excuse. Democrats have trouble putting their emotions away and let their intellect do their thinking. That is pretty much what you are admitting, Enigma.
I’m talking about Trump loyalists inspired by his rhetoric, and indeed, the devil made them do it.
I remember a case where the lawyer blamed too much sugar. You buy all this cr-p and that is why on the blog you make so many off the wall statements.
You don’t like facts and claim I made them up. Go to your room.
Enigma, now you are pretending to be my mom. We can guess you spent a lot of time in the corner.
Enigma, we are not going to take it anymore. Republicans are getting fighting mad. Democrats have called us vile names for decades, when they cannot address the facts. Demonize the opponent, and boy did they.
They even called Trump an antisemite even though he has Jewish family! No shame.
That’s the appeal of Trump. He fights back.
How long did you think we would take it? Many are afraid to walk on the street wearing political clothing. It’s not safe for teenagers to get involved in politics. My 9 year old son already has had kids on the playground run up to everyone saying, if you like Trump you’re a racist!!! Bullies just like their parents. He tells me to turn the radio down if I have any conservative radio program on, before he opens the door to get out. He was becoming afraid. And he is forming a very negative opinion about the mental state of Democrats who behave this way. When it got to the point that my son tells me kids are bullying other kids if they say their families are Republicans or they like Trump, I got steaming mad. I had a talk with him about how to stay out of politics at school, but that if he has to defend himself, I’ll back him up all the way.
The message is being sent that it’s open season on Republicans, including kids. Perhaps it’s good that the movie The Hunt is coming out. In that movie, Republicans are kidnapped and hunted by slavering Democrats who believe their quarry are subhuman. Maybe they needed a good, hard look in the mirror.
I honestly feel very sorry for your son.
“The Hunt is coming out. In that movie, Republicans are kidnapped and hunted by slavering Democrats who believe their quarry are subhuman.”
Democrats of the past didn’t have to act out things they were the predominant group actually did those things to other human beings in our nation’s history.
I don’t put a sticker on my car bc I know the INSANE left will damage it . They are ,sadly, indoctrinated stooges of the left incapable of moral conduct. One day we will meet their “force” with OVERWHELMING and life-ending force. Keep screwing around and prepare to meet Satan!
I read your statement with little doubt who is insane. I suggest you remain anonymous when making death threats, remember you can still be tracked.
Enigma, one needn’t look no further than these comment threads to see how mean-spirited Trump supporters can be. Though curiously Mr Pingback is absent from this particular thread today. It’s almost as though someone told him to hang low.
Enigma – the percentage of police shootings of unarmed black people occur at an infinitesimal percentage of the general population. Does that mean you have no concerns about it?
Comparing anything to the percentage of 324 million people is difficult.
There is no data at all being kept on how often Republicans wearing MAGA hats are harassed. Only physical assaults where there is a police report is filed creates any paperwork. I am not aware of any database that compiles all of these assaults in one place. We could start a database on all of the harassment, but that would rely on self reporting, which is notoriously inaccurate. There would be many instances not reported, and some bad actors would make up reports.
So, all we have to go on are the police reports, and what makes it into the news.
You could do your own experiment. Wear a MAGA hat, and a shirt that says Trump 2020, and walk around in:
– a black majority community, which typically votes Democrat
– a college campus
– any area that has a significant Democrat population
Report back with your findings.
I could conduct your experiment with little concern for violence or injury except possibly dying of shame. I agree with you that there’s little data about what percentage of Trump supporters are harassed, just as their is no data in the reverse. It’s the presumption in Turley’s article that the news is distorted because Republicans under assault isn’t leading news coverage when anywhere outside the Trump bubble it rarely happens. Most of the hate crimes in America aren’t being perpetrated against Republicans.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/02/14/rap-sheet-389-media-approved-hate-crimes-trump-supporters/
“Are conservatives the only ones under attack or is it more of a case of dog bites man? ”
Enigma, all this demonstrates is that your sources of information are poor and you are very much behind the times.
Did this “Affirmative Action Privilege” project and beneficiary of “Generational Welfare” say, “…calling for violence?”
______________________________________________________________________________________________
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
– Obongo, June 14, 2008
____________________
America had a level playing field and this dependent said, “Tilt it in my favor.”
Now that’s a dang good idea!
An early “confrontation” between “Crazy Abe” and the truth:
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” After acknowledging that this plan’s “sudden execution is impossible,” he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
The Israelites were out of Egypt before the ink was dry on their “Emancipation Proclamation.”
I’m sorry, but if this idiot slapped my 15 year old, he would still be looking for his teeth. It would be a pleasure to stomp the absolute f**c out of this loser. That’s the way we handle this stuff in Texas!
I predicted yesterday that we were just about due for a column pandering to the culture of victimhood that Trumpers err embrace.
the culture of victimhood that Trumpers err embrace.
I’m always puzzled by Gainesville. I’m less puzzled by you, because you’re consistent. Everything you say is doltish.
What you don’t realize Paint Chips is your prediction was in actuality a a sad realization that once again your fellow travelers were going to be highlighted by our host for their brown shirt tactics. Damn.
Olly’s Paint Chip Joke: An Explanation
Olly, it appears you aspire to label me ‘Paint Chips’. It reminds of an experience I had on on a job unique to Hollywood. For 3 days I worked with a group that included an edgy comedian.
Said comedian was angry with his mother. He had called her hinting at suicide. She then called 911. They dispatched police who actually took our comedian to a mental ward. There he was held 48 hours for evaluation.
Despite his suicidal tendencies, this comedian fancied himself an undiscovered genius. And I got a sample of his humor while consuming a cup of Greek Yogurt. The comedian pointed to my yogurt and said, “You know that’s got Greek hair in it”. He then looked to the group expecting a big laugh!
It was an esoteric joke. One that seemed terribly funny to our comedian. But he had spent 48 hours in a mental ward. So that was his POV blurting his pathetic joke.
Olly I think of you and that comedian in relation to your paint chips joke. I picture you as a bitter old man drinking alone in the afternoon. Drinking cheap beer, in fact, while scrolling the comment threads of Johnathan Turley’s blog.
Under these conditions you imagine your paint chips joke as the pinnacle of dark, comedy. You even imagine the reactions of various Trumpers on this blog. Allen laughs so violently he almost spits out his Geritol. Karen falls off her rocker. And Absurd makes that wheezing noise common to smokers on the brink of emphysema.
But at the end of the day, Olly, there is only ‘you’; a sad old drunk in a dingy tract home thinking he is horribly, horribly funny with his pathetic paint chips joke.
Hill, Burgoyne, Warner = Paint Chips. It’s no joke; you’ve earned it.
“And I got a sample of his humor while consuming a cup of Greek Yogurt. ”
Paint Chips, are you sure it wasn’t Greek Paint?
🙂
Paint Chips Peter is the domain of victimhood.
Parents – you need to anticipate that it is not safe for your child to show support for Republicans in public. Democrats may attack your kids. Remember Covington High School.
If your teen is brave enough to face violent Demcocrat activists, take measures to ensure their safety. Stay with them so you can be there to defend your child, physically if need be. The chances are high that your child will be harassed, called names, or even assaulted. This is happening all across the country. Plan for their safety. Hire bodyguards or off duty police, if necessary. But protect your child and stand up for domestic terrorists who would try to terrify your precious child not to be Republican.
#StopDemocratViolence
Remember how many times Trump said that he hated Neo Nazis and such violent hate groups? Remember how people said he did not deny it enough? Where are journalists shoving a microphone into prominent Democrat politicians’ faces, demanding 20 times a day for them to condemn all these Democrat violent assaults on Republicans, to the point that Republicans are afraid to wear a MAGA hat? Where is the “free media” holding politicians accountable for every single thing their voters do, like they do for Trump?
Where are the slick graphics plastered on the news on all channels, for days, linking specific Democrat rhetoric to this violence?