Jeremy Diamond, a reporter for CNN, posted this Twitter video of a black man being physically assaulted by attendees of a Donald Trump presidential campaign rally in Birmingham, Alabama earlier today:
According to CNN and Raw Story, the protester was heard saying “black lives matter”, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, which prompted several Trump supporters to physically assault the protestor. Trump himself can be heard saying “get him the hell out of here” or something along those lines, which, in effect, amounted to condoning the violence against the protester. According to the Birmingham (AL) Police, three people were removed from the rally by law enforcement as a result of the scuffle.
With Donald Trump calling for an unconstitutional surveillance scheme of mosques in the United States and preventing Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. instead of facing the threat of death at the hands of ISIS and/or the Assad regime in Syria, it’s no surprise that a mob of Trump’s far-right supporters would physically assault a peaceful protestor. While Trump has every right to remove people he doesn’t like from a campaign event (all other presidential candidates have the same right to remove people they don’t like from their campaign events), his supporters don’t have the right to form a mob and beat up a peaceful protestor.
The Progressive Midwesterner 