Sorry, Donald. You can' blame Bernie and be believed

Donald Trump's supporters have shown a pattern of beating up and physically abusing protesters and dissenters that goes back to the beginning of his campaign. This should not be surprising. As I've documented several times, an early study of the psychologies of candidate choice in this campaign concluded that the characteristic which most accurately defined Trump supporters was authoritarianism.

Now, in the last several days, left-wing crazies (another group of authoritarians, although they would be outraged to hear this truth about themselves) have taken to disrupting Trump rallies. As I noted in a previous post, I was president of the Wright College student government and also of the City Colleges of Chicago Student Union back in the '70's, and had plenty of experience with these people during our fight against the imposition of tuition on our then-free City Colleges system (which covered the first two years of a college education and provided a major boost to working-class families trying to finance a college education for their kids). I'm not going to say that the type of young person who goes around disrupting rallies for candidates they don't approve of (or in our case at Wright, preventing a scientist whose theories they considered racist from debating them) don't believe in their ideology and their causes. They do. But they are also having fun.

They are possessed of no political sophistication whatsoever. The morons who disrupted the Trump rally in Chicago apparently neither knew nor cared that the net result of their actions would be to garner sympathy for Trump. Nor did it occur to them that in opposing a candidate on the ground that he is a totalitarian with little or no respect for the rights of those who disagree with him, depriving him and his supporters of their right to free speech is probably the most counterproductive possible way of expressing one's displeasure.

"We shut the Trumpies down!" exulted convicted bomber and Obama buddy Bill Ayers the other night. Yes, that they did. And helped gain sympathy for Donald Trump in the process, further irritating his angry supporters while gaining absolutely nothing for the anti-Trump cause.

But they had fun.

The practical political nihilism of the American left-wing crazy is just that: nihilism. It has no particular political aim or purpose other than to "defeat" the other side by preventing it from expressing its case. It's juvenile, pointless, self-defeating, and just plain stupid- just like its expression at the Trump rally the other day.

Yes, the demonstrators chanted "Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!" Of course they were supporters of the Vermont socialist; anybody on the nutty Left these days would almost have to be, by definition. But it is a far, far stretch from there to suggesting, as Donald Trump did, that they were "from the Sanders campaign." Donald, I think, was judging Bernie Sanders by himself.

It's one thing to say that the average silly and immature left-wing activist is without an iota of political common sense. It's another to suggest that the campaign of a United States Senator who has won presidential primaries is equally self-destructive. I know of no association between Bernie Sanders and this kind of nonsense at even a theoretical level, and in any case, he wouldn't be where he is today if he didn't understand fully how self-defeating and just plain stupid it is to disrupt an opponent's rally- especially when one's critique of that opponent is at least in part that he's a fascist!

No, Mr. Trump. I have no use for Bernie Sanders' nutty politics and nuttier economics. But you're the one who tries to silence people who disagree with you. You threaten them. You intimidate them. And you encourage your supporters to beat them up.

Bernie Sanders has done none of that. Nor, I am confident, will he. Yes, there will be people who won't think your suggestion that the Sanders campaign is responsible for the disruption of your rally through and will believe you. That's especially true of your own angry supporters, whose anger has been preventing them from thinking a lot of things through lately- like their support of you, for example.

But disinformation about the origin of the violence at your rally, especially when accompanied by absolutely no evidence, isn't going to convince most Americans, any more than your schtick will convince them in the Fall if you're the Republican nominee. Your track record is all too plain. We not only recognize the fascist pattern in your own behavior and that of your supporters, but we know that you're liable to say just about anything at any given moment, and we make allowances.

So when Bernie Sanders starts inciting his supporters to violence like  you routinely incite yours, maybe your accusations will have some credibility- or at least as much credibility as anything you say. But that's not going to happen, because whatever else Bernie Sanders may be, he's not a totalitarian sleeze like you.