New York Times
By Ashley Parker
March 10, 2016
When
Kashiya Nwanguma learned that Donald J. Trump would campaign in
Louisville, Ky., where she is a student, she walked into a FedEx store
and printed two colorful signs she had found online,
depicting his head on a pig’s body.
Then
she steeled herself for what has become the most provocative and
potentially dangerous recurring act committed by ordinary voters in the
2016 presidential cycle: protesting Mr. Trump
inside one of his own rallies.
The
moment that Ms. Nwanguma, 21, who is black, held up her signs, Trump
supporters ripped them away and began shoving her, screaming racial
slurs and calling her “leftist scum,” she said
in an interview.
“Did I enjoy being treated like trash? No, not at all,” she said.
At
least she came away unharmed. The same could not be said for Rakeem
Jones, 26, a protester who was punched in the face by a Trump supporter
on Wednesday as law enforcement officers were
leading him out of a campaign rally in Fayetteville, N.C.
“He
deserved it,” the assailant, John McGraw, told the television program
“Inside Edition” after the confrontation, which was captured on video
from several angles. “Next time, we might have
to kill him.”
Mr.
McGraw was charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct, and
the authorities said they were also preparing to charge him with
communicating a threat.
As
Mr. Trump has unleashed the pent-up fury of economically displaced
Americans, a much smaller but equally fervent movement has materialized
in response, of people who are determined to
shame Mr. Trump publicly, even if it means withstanding hostility,
slurs, shouting or violence.
In
recent weeks, the demonstrations have intensified, interrupting Mr.
Trump time and again, breaking his train of thought and challenging his
ability to command the room.
“Can
the protesters stop for a couple of seconds so we can talk?” he said
after several interruptions in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.
Such
protests are hardly unique to the Trump campaign, but rarely have they
been as frequent or as hostile, and few candidates have been as angry in
response.
The
rancor is so blatant that Mr. Trump was asked about it during the
debate on Thursday night in Miami. He said he had not seen the violent
episode in Fayetteville, and when asked if he
was encouraging his supporters’ fury, he said, “I hope not.”
But
he added that some of the protesters were “bad dudes” who were seeking
confrontation. The “animosity is like I’ve never seen before,” he told
Chris Cuomo of CNN after the debate, “and
I hope we can straighten it out.”
The
tensions between supporters and protesters lately seem to be mirrored
by clashes between journalists and Mr. Trump’s entourage. A Secret
Service agent was seen on camera grabbing a photographer
by the throat and throwing him to the ground last month during a
protest. And on Tuesday night, in Jupiter, Fla., the Trump campaign
manager, Corey Lewandowski, roughly yanked the arm of a Breitbart
reporter as she tried to ask Mr. Trump about affirmative
action, she and another reporter said. (A campaign spokeswoman disputed
their account.)
Despite
pre-event disclaimers urging peaceable conduct, Mr. Trump’s tone often
seems to encourage aggression. The candidate has berated security guards
for not ejecting protesters quickly
enough.
Last
year, he suggested that a man wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt who
was beaten and kicked may have deserved it. In February, as a protester
was being removed from an event in Las Vegas,
Mr. Trump said, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” And in
Fayetteville on Wednesday, as people kept interrupting him, Mr. Trump
lamented the “good old days” when, he said, protesters would have been
treated more harshly.
Indeed,
the disruptions have become as much a fixture of Trump rallies as the
chants to “build the wall” and promises to “make America great again” —
so routine that aides prepare for them,
the candidate anticipates them and his crowds are instructed in how to
handle them.
“If
a protester starts demonstrating in the area around you, please do not
touch or harm the protester,” begins a scripted message that precedes
all Trump rallies. To quickly alert local
law enforcement, the message continues, “please hold a rally sign over
your head and start chanting: ‘Trump! Trump! Trump!’ ”
A
cat-and-mouse game precedes each Trump appearance. As audiences filter
in through security checks, campaign aides scrutinize those in line,
trying to spot groups of protesters by their
matching shirts or other telling signs. People seen as likely
disrupters are often ushered out before Mr. Trump ever takes the stage.
People ejected from a rally in Concord, N.C., on Monday included a man
in a shirt that read “Fascist Trump,” and a group of
men and women in black and white shirts who had linked arms.
Perhaps
not coincidentally, Mr. Trump has lately started asking his supporters
to raise their right hands and pledge their loyalty to him, creating
tableaus that critics have likened to the
salutes of followers of Hitler and Mussolini.
The response when a protest breaks out can seem almost biological.
Trump
supporters typically begin shouting, pointing, jeering — and sometimes
kicking or spitting — at the protester, surrounding the offender in a
tight circle, like an antibody trying to
isolate and expel an unwanted invader from the bloodstream.
In
Louisville on March 1, Ms. Nwanguma was shocked by the reaction from
Trump supporters, she said in an interview later. A video of the episode
shows her clutching her cellphone and pinballing
among outstretched, shoving hands. She said she was thinking, “Oh my
God, this can’t be happening,” adding, “I didn’t have any way to assign
any names to my feelings.”
Mr.
Trump tries to turn the interruptions to his advantage, showcasing his
large crowds and commanding presence, alternately shouting “Get ’em out
of here” and “Be nice.”
In
Concord, he referred to demonstrators as “my friends” and showed
flashes of compassion. “Are you O.K., honey? Don’t fall,” he said, when a
protester seemed to stumble.
But
six minutes into the event, when another man was led away, raising both
middle fingers to the crowd in a show of defiance, Mr. Trump yelled,
“Out, out, out!”
“He puts up the wrong finger and we’re supposed to take it nowadays, folks,” Mr. Trump said. “Pretty sad. Nasty, nasty people.”
Still, something is enticing more and more protesters to brave the hostile response.
Maria
Alcivar, 27, a student at Iowa State whose family is from Ecuador,
helped organize four protests at Trump events in Iowa. At the first,
outside a football tailgate party, she said her
group’s signs were ripped and people shouted.
Now,
she said, she and other protesters take safety precautions, meeting in
advance to discuss the layout of each venue and agreeing that everyone
will leave as a group if one is asked to
go.
Ms.
Alcivar said she always felt nervous before protesting, fearful of
being physically assaulted. But once she begins, she said, Mr. Trump no
longer has control over her, or her message.
“Yes, I’m scared and nervous in the moment,” she said. “But once I start chanting, I feel superpowerful.”
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