Talking heads all over the political spectrum seem to be speaking with one voice on critical point.
Donald J. Trump’s frontrunning bid to be the next president of the United States has been fueled by angry Americans. He leads the Republican field of primary contenders because, they say, he has tapped into that anger.
As the fellow who delivers my mail every day told me this week: “Trump is saying what everyone is thinking.”
Yeah, whatever.
The anger is presenting itself at these rallies. Protestors are showing up to disrupt the Trump events, which by itself isn’t anything new. I’ve been to more than few political rallies in my lifetime — dating back to 1972 — to understand that fundamental American demonstration of political expression.
What’s different this time has been the behavior of the candidate, who from the podium is fomenting aggressive resistance to what the protestors are seeking to express.
Now the candidate — Trump — has laid blame on a Democratic candidate for fomenting the protests. He says the noise is coming from those supporting U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Sanders, quite understandably, has denied such an accusation.
I am not going to take sides on who’s starting these disruptive events.
Instead, I want to focus for a moment on how Trump has handled himself when these outbursts occur.
It’s the strange behavior from the podium that has me most troubled. Never in my entire life have I watched and listened to a supposedly mainstream American political figure actually egg on his supporters to punch protestors “in the face.” One of those Trumpsters seemed to take that exhortation quite literally when he sucker-punched a protestor who was being escorted from a rally venue in North Carolina.
How can we tamp down this visceral anger?
One place to start would be for the candidate to change the tone of his campaign rhetoric. Do we need to keep hearing the same one-note samba about how “stupid” we’ve become, or how “we don’t win anymore” or whether we’ve succumbed to weakness displayed by “political correctness”?
I’m prepared to hear some constructive solutions.
Enough of the condemnation and recrimination.