"4 days ago, I decided it would be a wonderful idea to attend the Trump Rally in Louisville."

[kpete]

Katie Lefever
March 1 at 7:18pm:

Little did I know that it would turn into applying for media credentials, a race to get there on time, and one of the most exciting few hours of my young life. Now, before any of my friends or family think I have suddenly jumped ship and switched my political views, let me say that this experience was not eye opening because of the man on stage. If anything, seeing him in person has just pushed me further away so... sorry, my hopeful Republican family, I'm still a hardcore liberal. Instead of talking about the things Mr. Trump had to say (which I'm sure you all saw on the 6 o' clock news), I am here to share my experience as a temporary member of the "media" and a nameless face in the crowd. I watched on in mild horror as the man running for president riled up the crowd as they attacked protesters with boos, a few punches from what I heard, and by ripping their signs from their hands. I listened in awe as people from my home state cheered and applauded Trump when he said he supported torture and water boarding. But, more than anything, the experience that stuck with me was an interview me and my friend Ethan conducted with a protester outside of the stadium. The man we chose to speak with carried a large sign with the words "Trump is the son of Hitler" scrawled out in a sloppy mess of duct tape. Expecting to hear a little nonsense (as we had with many other people we interviewed) I was stunned into silence by his story. He explained that his father had served in WWII and was the photographer for his troop. He went on to say that his father had been sent on a mission to clean up after an old concentration camp. When they reached said place, all they found were dead bodies. The people who were deemed "too weak" had been killed the day before his father's troop arrived. He said his father took pictures of these crimes and when he and his siblings were about ten years old, his father showed them these photos. He went on to say that the pictures had shown him "what hate can do to people" and that the lesson had stuck with him through his whole life. I was very near tears at this point because I saw the connection. I felt the pain and fear in his voice of seeing such atrocities repeated after history had warned us so strongly about men with hearts full of hate and the power to brainwash with strong words and a loud voice. If I took anything away from this experience, it is that. Hate kills. Giving power to men with nothing but anger in their eyes and acid in their mouths will only result in pain. If any of you who are friends with me are undecided, please take this to heart. Please understand that a loud mouth is not always a sign of strength. Understand that a man who wants to separate humans from their fellow humans is a manipulator trying to exterminate the opposition. Understand that hate breeds hate and that as long as we keep giving power to men who breathe destruction as they say "I love you", we will reap the devastation. We will be the ones who have to look back on this time and decision with regret and pain. We, the people of America, will feel the consequences tenfold if we put this man in office. Remember what hate does. Remember the history of our world... do not allow history to repeat itself.

https://www.facebook.com/katie.lefever.90/posts/1252090041472698
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1252090014806034&set=a.356793904335654.101239.100000151428918&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/katie.lefever.90?fref=nf

[LiberalFighter]

1. People need to hear more of this.

[love_katz]

2. Kicking.

[malaise]

3. A very important post

Rec

[Initech]

4. I am deathly afraid of what a Drumpf administration would bring.

[onethatcares]

5. thank you for posting this

hate has to be taught.............sadly there are too many teachers.


Peace

[Arazi]

6. This is great but you'd help her by giving it paragraph breaks

That is one solid wall of text

[tblue37]

13. I fixed that for the OP down below in my post #12 below. nt

[Arazi]

16. Thank you! Much improved

[world wide wally]

7. How many of us have fathers and grandfathers who fought against fascism in WWII

Only to see their children and grandchildren embrace it now.
This is the saddest reflection on America we may ever see.

[Duppers]

8. Powerful! Well worth the read.

Thank you for posting this.

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. Brave woman and Protestors. Drumpf is stirring the pot of Hatred and Exclusion.

[Rebkeh]

10. Beautiful

Giving power to men with nothing but anger in their eyes and acid in their mouths will only result in pain. If any of you who are friends with me are undecided, please take this to heart. Please understand that a loud mouth is not always a sign of strength.

Indeed.

[Dr. Xavier]

11. Wow, I can feel your anguish

your words are very powerful. My dad fought in WWII under General Patton and he too, had to experience 'liberating' a concentration camp, Mauthausen. He never talked about it, never. When I see and hear the hatred that spews from the mouths of these haters, I can only think of the confusion that comes from paranoid schizophrenics, the cadence is the same, the spittle forming at the sides of their mouths, the trance that they get in. Its scary but we can't let it stop us from fighting these people. You are so right as to what we are experiencing. We must share this man's story with everyone. Thank you.

[Jim Beard]

23. My dad was also under Patton. He was an engineer during the Battle of the Buldge

He had pictures of the camps and ovens. A son of a bitch stole them.

[tblue37]

12. Undoubtedly you posted this exactly as it appears in the original,

but that makes it virtually unreadable on a computer monitor--and even worse on a mobile device. I had to paste it into a Word document and format it to be able to read it. And since I had already done that, I decided to bring the newly formatted version here and post it so that others could more easily read the post, since what it has to say is important:

Little did I know that it would turn into applying for media credentials, a race to get there on time, and one of the most exciting few hours of my young life. Now, before any of my friends or family think I have suddenly jumped ship and switched my political views, let me say that this experience was not eye opening because of the man on stage. If anything, seeing him in person has just pushed me further away so... sorry, my hopeful Republican family, I'm still a hardcore liberal.

Instead of talking about the things Mr. Trump had to say (which I'm sure you all saw on the 6 o' clock news), I am here to share my experience as a temporary member of the "media" and a nameless face in the crowd. I watched on in mild horror as the man running for president riled up the crowd as they attacked protesters with boos, a few punches from what I heard, and by ripping their signs from their hands.

I listened in awe as people from my home state cheered and applauded Trump when he said he supported torture and water boarding. But, more than anything, the experience that stuck with me was an interview me and my friend Ethan conducted with a protester outside of the stadium. The man we chose to speak with carried a large sign with the words "Trump is the son of Hitler" scrawled out in a sloppy mess of duct tape.

Expecting to hear a little nonsense (as we had with many other people we interviewed) I was stunned into silence by his story. He explained that his father had served in WWII and was the photographer for his troop.

He went on to say that his father had been sent on a mission to clean up after an old concentration camp. When they reached said place, all they found were dead bodies. The people who were deemed "too weak" had been killed the day before his father's troop arrived. He said his father took pictures of these crimes and when he and his siblings were about ten years old, his father showed them these photos.

He went on to say that the pictures had shown him "what hate can do to people" and that the lesson had stuck with him through his whole life. I was very near tears at this point because I saw the connection. I felt the pain and fear in his voice of seeing such atrocities repeated after history had warned us so strongly about men with hearts full of hate and the power to brainwash with strong words and a loud voice. If I took anything away from this experience, it is that. Hate kills.

Giving power to men with nothing but anger in their eyes and acid in their mouths will only result in pain. If any of you who are friends with me are undecided, please take this to heart. Please understand that a loud mouth is not always a sign of strength.

Understand that a man who wants to separate humans from their fellow humans is a manipulator trying to exterminate the opposition. Understand that hate breeds hate and that as long as we keep giving power to men who breathe destruction as they say "I love you", we will reap the devastation. We will be the ones who have to look back on this time and decision with regret and pain. We, the people of America, will feel the consequences tenfold if we put this man in office. Remember what hate does. Remember the history of our world... do not allow history to repeat itself.

[Hekate]

15. Thank you, and thanks to the OP. I hope the young author reaches many beyond her family. nt

[elljay]

14. KnR

Beautifully said.

[cantbeserious]

17. Bernie Is The Only Antidote

eom

[Enthusiast]

19. Correct you are. eom

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

18. I too fear a Trump presidency

All the signs are there as to what it would be like and those signs are not so subtle, they seem to be tangled up into everything we care about, but these are just the feelings and observations of my 74 year old eyes.
I knew a different country back then.

[cantbeserious]

20. Some People Are Fearful With Either Choice - Trump Or HRC - For Different Reasons

eom

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

21. Like I have said before.

Now is the time for a real progressive populist movement, but the message needs to be clear and not overly complex and it needs to be repeated over and over to drive it home into the minds of the people.

Then Bernie will win.

[cantbeserious]

22. Roger That

eom

[felix_numinous]

24. Anyone who lived through those times hears alarm bells with Trump

A country with decades of economic collapse, the fall of the middle class, the scapegoating of citizens (execution style), all after decades of schools being dumbed down (not teaching civics anymore?)...if anyone is familiar with the book The True Believers by Erich Hoffman, he explains the rise of the Nazis by breaking down what types of people and what social conditions are in place for extremism to occur. We are ripe for this, and if social media is mis-used to their advantage they can gain ground.

People of conscience should have NEVER fed this man's ego and talked such a man into running for president, that was truly an evil thing to do, I think all of the racist violence going on today is totally related to his being in the spotlight, he is egging on the worst people. I wish more than anything he is deemed a domestic threat and taken out of the running.