DESERVING EACH OTHER

Ken Berwitz


Donald Trump had a rally in bluest-of-blue Burlington, Vermont last night.

It was held at the Flynn Center for the Arts, a 1,400 seat venue…but Trump\’s people distributed 20,000 tickets, thus insuring that even if 90% of them wound up in the nearest trash can there would be an overflow crowd.

There were reports that, before being allowed in, people who showed up were asked whether they supported Trump.  Those who said no were escorted out.  

Trump\’s reaction?  “I\’m taking care of my people, not people who don\’t want to vote for me or are undecided.  They are loyal to me and I am loyal to them”.  In other words, he knew all about this and was personally behind it.

Conceptually, this is the non-violent equivalent ofterrorists overtaking a building, demanding that workers recite verses from theKoran, and killing the ones who could not.

Once the event got started, Trump was repeatedlydisrupted by hecklers, whose purpose was to either shut him down or, atthe very least, insure his speech was so disjointed that people got as little aspossible from it.

Thisis the equivalent – not conceptually, the actual equivalent – of academicbrownshirts who do the same at campuses when someone whose views they don\’tlike is speaking (i.e. an Israel supporter, a political conservative, etc.). 

The onlydifference – and it is a huge one – is that, instead of a pusillanimous schoolpresident acquiescing to the brownshirts and shutting the speaker down, thespeaker was having security toss them. And out they went, apparently still notcomprehending that it is impossible to break up a “speech” which, inreality, is a collection of short, blunt commentaries on a myriad of differentissues.

So what do we have here? Wehave Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who acted like a tin pot dictator, by pre-emptivelyremoving as many people who disagreed with him as possible, then spouted out histwo-liners while security tossed hecklers from the premises (to the great joyof his supporters), and we have loudmouthed brownshirt wannabes, trying to shut Trumpup so no one could hear his views, and too dense to realize they were playingright into his hands by doing so.

Theyreally do deserve each other.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *