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Violence in Politics Is Bad

Anti-Trump 'protesters' in San Jose (AP)
June 3, 2016

This is bad:

This is also bad:

trump-rally-sucker-punch

But this is also bad:

This is bad too:

And this is bad:

I appreciate the case against Trump. I support much of it. I've written before that my biggest fear is Trump's election will result in protests like last night being resolved by massive bloodshed. But you know what will help elect him and probably give President Trump license with the public to take part in such a crackdown?

I dunno, engaging in political violence might do it.

Look, guys: You don't get to say that you're afraid of Trump coming to power because he'll trash the rule of law and then just kind of shrug when an elected official says that his city is a no-go zone for a political candidate. You don't get to complain about violence at Trump rallies and then say that leftists smashing cars and bloodying faces were provoked into action by the mere fact of words they don't like being uttered near them. You don't get to tut tut about "brownshirts" and then tacitly endorse nights filled with broken glass because "direct action" is cool when the action is directed at people you don't like.

Trump is bad and some of his supporters do and say bad things. But his opposition is doing a pretty bang-up job of confirming all of their biases. Maybe they should stop doing that.