It might be just me, but Trump's campaign is starting to feel like President Buzz Windrip's authoritarian regime in Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, a 1936 warning about Hitler and perhaps Huey Long on our own shores. Like Windrip, Trump is a corporatist who pronounces inanities pumped full of patriotic bullshit about traditional values. What's equally revealing is Trump's heavy-handed bodyguards, who resemble the fascist Minute Men in Lewis's story—Windrip's personal militia who crack down on any dissent, whether it's from the media or the public.
We saw it with the Jorge Ramos episode, where Trump only had to nod to a strong-arm goon off-stage, and the Univision reporter was tossed from the press conference for asking the wrong questions. Then yesterday, outside the presser where Donald Trump announced he had signed "the pledge," this 10-second confrontation occurred (video not embeddable).
The protestor, identified as Efrain Galicia, was demonstrating on a public sidewalk with others who held signs condemning the Republican front-runner's anti-immigrant remarks. "Make America Racist Again" read one large banner that Galicia held, an obvious riff on Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
The Trump campaign did not appreciate Mr. Galicia's sign, nor did they respect his right of free speech. The large man who grabbed Galicia's sign appears to be the same thug who earlier shoved Jorge Ramos from the press conference, although the campaign will not confirm that. When Galicia attempted to retrieve his sign, he gets cold-cocked—a right to the head. But here's the pisser, according to the New York Times:
The Trump campaign said that the security team member on Thursday was "jumped from behind" and that the campaign would "likely be pressing charges."
That's right, Trump's campaign denied Mr. Galicia his right of expression in a public space, stole and destroyed his property, clobbered him on the head, and now
they are threatening charges against Galicia! Pure Trump.
I think I first read It Can't Happen Here in the 70s in college, and I thought Lewis was awfully prescient when you consider Hitler over there and McCarthy here. Then when the Minuteman bullshit started happening here on the Arizona-Mexico border, it wasn't only the name "Minute Men" and the invasion of Mexican in the novel that started to ring true, but the racist, authoritarian regime that is Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
It's no surprise Arpaio and Trump are friends, united in birtherhood, bigotry and thuggery.
h/t to Rosalie907: Protestor Efrain Galicia will be on Chris Hayes tonight.