Mob violence in Chicago could spread throughout America
Dateline: May 1990, JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Our bus came to a sudden stop. A few minutes later our micro-tourist bus trickled up the shoulder. Then the driver gunned it. When we reached 40 mph or so we saw up ahead a group of African National Congress black protesters with baseball bats and some white South African cops with clubs, pepper spray and guns at the ready. The country was on the verge of a race war and I was plenty happy to be leaving the country in a couple of days.
Race war is wrong. I met lots of black people there that were nice, gentle and very worried. They didn’t hate whites and I only met one white in a month who was close to being a racist. But the pot was boiling over. Somehow South Africa got very lucky. I am not so sure we are going to be that lucky. Probably, but it’s not guaranteed.
Last Friday at the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus broke out into a full scale riot when hundreds of Donald Trump protestors demonstrated against the Republican candidate and his controversial views on race and immigration. Anti-Trump organizers from a dozen or more groups banded together to fight the controversial policies of Trump. Or at least that is what they would have you believe with their war cries following the event.
The fact that this spilled out in Chicago is no accident really. The university is home to one of the most diverse student bodies in the country. The school proudly promotes its diversity with only 45 percent of its student body being classified as white. The location appeared to be a perfect storm for protest against a lot of Trump’s policies.
The violent upswing of fervent anti-Trump sentiment will only resonate with Trump supporters who want to “fight fire with fire” and who understand the false flag of the radical left who demand change with Bernie Sanders as their socialist spear tip. Sanders went so far Sunday as to say “young people need to fight back” and then transformed himself back into his Caspar Milquetoast persona.
More disgusting was President Barack Obama, a community organizer who claims Chicago as “his town,” gloating over the violence at the Trump rally and blaming the billionaire for black and white hatred across the county; hatred which has been incited by him during his seven-plus years as president.
Diehard Trump supporters have already voiced their opinion that freedom of speech was effectively squashed on Friday night and will now seek retribution. This retribution could very well involve further outbursts of violence and spark a nationwide epidemic of unrest that will play into the hands of a youthful population desensitized to violence and yearning to be part of the action.
Sanders’ supporters made up a large portion of the protesting groups from Friday night. Indeed, the Sanders campaign on its website encouraged Bernie supporters to disrupt Trump rallies.
One self-described Bernie supporter is Jedidiah Brown who is making headlines following his actions on Friday. Brown is an ordained pastor and “anti-violence activist” who was caught on video cameras throwing right hands into a crowd of Trump supporters. Not exactly the strongest message for an allied anti-violent front against Trump. He was not the only Sanders supporter out on Friday.
It is almost surreal that Trump comes away from this as the victim, but it is impossible to deny that freedom of speech was suppressed in Chicago and that political rallies should never be cancelled for fear of violent outbursts. Social media has proven yet again to be an effective form of gathering mobs towards violence – similarly seen in Vancouver in the 2011 Stanley Cup riot where $5 million in property damage was done. The violence then was not by Vancouver Canuck supporters angered by their team losing a hockey game but by an angry mob trolling the Internet in search of mayhem and violence. This is the issue at stake with Friday’s protest that could see similar recurrences throughout the election process.
This type of behavior exists where young and active internet users will follow Twitter and Instagram authors and feel a pull toward getting involved. Fighting cops and Republicans is not exactly what political activism was designed for, but you can bet you will see repeat behavior with greater violence, not just at Trump events, but at the other Republican and even Democratic rallies.
Chicago is no stranger to controversial political rallies. In July 1944 Henry Wallace should have been named Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Wallace had been with Roosevelt since the beginning and had been the successful agricultural minister during the formative New Deal years. Wallace had strongly advocated for a peaceful coexistence with the Soviets and improving living conditions for oppressed people in Asia all while pushing hard for race and gender improvements in America.
The Democratic Party bosses had other ideas and they were united by their hatred of Wallace. Backed by Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly, the party inevitably settled on Harry Truman, who would bend to the wills of the party bosses and not fight their anti-Soviet sentiment and traditional ideals. Despite a raucous Chicago crowd chanting Wallace’s name, the vice presidential candidate was kept off the ballot. It has historical been known as one of the greatest injustices in American politics.
Friday night in Chicago was not a carefully orchestrated political coup by a political party. It was more an effort by social Marxist professional agitators to create confusion and violence and spur Trump supporters into a confrontation.
That night in Chicago forever changed the world. The next year Roosevelt was dead, Truman was inaugurated, and in August 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. The ramifications have rarely been higher in American political history. History will tell us how Friday night forever changed political activism as there is a significant portion of Americans who have witnessed a new type of activism. The language of violence now speaks volumes to young protestors.
Trump, famous for his use of social media with 6.87 million followers on Twitter, has returned fire by blaming Sanders for spreading Anti-Trump protests in Chicago. A warning shot was fired when Trump blasted “Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours” referring to future Sanders rallies.
If you watched Fox News and MSNBC on Friday night you would have seen the media presenting the facts in a completely different way. Megyn Kelly and Rachel Maddow would have you believe that Friday was simply fallout from Trump’s promotion of violence, effectively giving the violent outburst by the frenzied crowd a free pass for attacking Trump supporters and even the police. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio even weighed in that Trump was to blame for the violent protests.
This is so bizarrely backwards and would be similar to blaming centuries of slavery for today’s black violence. Not only is it irresponsible but it is dangerous, as you are effectively giving young, violence seekers who troll Twitter a free pass for acting dangerously and getting in on the action.
With headlines raging all weekend about the incident and including Trump’s name at the headline of every major American newspaper, it simply remains that any publicity is good publicity for the billionaire Republican candidate. While Trump supporters are usually cast as being the extremely vocal and at times violent group, they have been usurped by protests in Chicago and elsewhere. This battle is only the beginning, though, as future protests will prove. Social media will dictate for the future battlegrounds and the inevitable next explosion of violence is soon to come.
Yours in good times and bad,
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