GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, October 16, 2016, 3:57 PM
Violence and threats of violence emanating from the Trump campaign are multiplying by the day.
In Virginia, a Trump supporter, taking advantage of his state's open carry laws, positioned himself in front of the storefront window of a Democratic congressional candidate's campaign office. For nearly twelve hours, he brandished a firearm, intimidating volunteers working there.
In Milwaukee, a sheriff called for insurrection with this tweet: "It is incredible that our institutions of gov. WH, Congress, DOJ, and big media are corrupt & all we do is b---h. Pitchforks and torches time."
At a Trump rally in North Carolina on Friday, things got even worse, with a self-proclaimed member of "gays for Trump" viciously beating a protester.
In an entirely different order of magnitude, in Kansas, three men — members of a militia known as the Crusaders — were busted on Friday by the FBI for plotting a mass-casualty attack on the Muslim residents of a Somali-American apartment complex. "I personally back Donald Trump." one of the conspirators explained on Facebook.
Writing for the Boston Globe, Matt Viser reports that Trump supporters, envisioning an impending Hillary Clinton victory, are "openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination."
These alarming developments have not emerged in a vacuum. As his numbers in the polls have begun to sink, and with the prospect of defeat staring him in the face, Donald Trump has been whipping his supporters into a frenzy with incessant claims that the "system is rigged." He warns of electoral fraud on a mass scale and has invoked the specter of a global conspiracy to do him in. "Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich her donors," are the astounding actual words of the Republican nominee for president.
Obviously, Trump is playing with combustible materials. And just as obviously, as he lurches toward what could be an epic electoral collapse, he is not going to stop. Indeed, egged on by his alt-Right aides, and unwilling to face the consequences of his own folly, he is almost certain to intensify his incendiary rhetoric. This will not end well.
(more at link)
