Such handwringing over not much, really, in Chicago

[jberryhill]

Can someone please let me know the body count over what doesn't even rise to the level of a riot?

Heavens to Betsy, you'd think someone won the Stanley Cup.

Was there anything more substantial than some fistfghts?

This is what happens after a hockey game:



This is what happens during a soccer match:



This is what happens after a jury verdict:



Crowds can get into emotional frenzies over all sorts of things. We regularly have sporting events in which the object of the sport is to beat one's opponent into unconsciousness, while the crowd cheers on their favorite contestant. Does that sort of mass event - in which violence is the POINT - inspire a lot of handwringing over whether the promoters are encouraging violence? We have football and baseball games in which fatal conflicts occur with regularity. I must have missed the hours of news coverage focusing on which team's coach is responsible for those sorts of things.

It's no wonder that Americans are so ignorant of world events. A lot of significant things happened today on this planet, but the one and only thing our news media covered all freaking evening long was, as far as I could tell, some shouting and punching at a mass gathering.

Other than some fistfights, can someone help me understand the earth-shattering monumental significance of an unruly crowd at a cancelled political rally, because I'm just not getting it.

[JFKDem62]

1. New York Times calling it a "violent scuffle" nt

[Kip Humphrey]

2. Plus, we all go for pizza and beer afterwards.

[Xipe Totec]

3. Ya call this a riot?!

&t=2m10s

[haikugal]

4. Didn't look like '68 to me....but it was tense, at least knowing what could happen made me tense.

I don't watch MSM so I haven't been forced to focus on it.

You ask a good question.

[jberryhill]

6. You know what was "tense"?

The April 3, 1989 Grateful Dead concert at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena was a fuckload more "tense". A crowd of ticketless jackasses organized in the parking lot and stormed their way in, resulting in a bunch of injuries and property damage.

That was "tense", but still not much of a big deal really. Although the local news reporters were duly lined up on the sidewalks nearby going on about the violent drug-crazed Deadheads having invaded their town.

i have GOT to get me a fainting couch concession somewhere.

[haikugal]

10. I don't like the fascist rants and rabble violence...

Fainting couches aren't required and I hope we don't have to relive history either.

[LittleBlue]

5. Violence at campaign rallies hasn't occurred during my lifetime

This is going to be played up big time.

[jberryhill]

7. Well, then, live a little longer

[LittleBlue]

8. I hope to not see that again

That looked like Greece during the economic calamity. Most importantly, the racial aspect was really bad for the country.

The previous stuff I thought was a one-off. Now it's becoming the norm and it's more than just a few people.

[jberryhill]

9. Oh Lord...

The Greece austerity protests looked nothing like this.

The news keeps playing the same loop of about six or seven cuts.

Seriously - how many people have you seen in that looped video actually injured in any way?

[brush]

12. It's not about injuries. It's about the significance of the confrontation . . .

between Trump's fans who have been goaded to violence by him at other events (several injuries and 31 arrests earlier today in St Louis at a Trump event for instance) and anti-fascist demonstrators in Chicago determined to voice their opposition to that kind of demagogic behavior in their city — and you make light of it.

What's up with that?

My hat is off to the Chicago demonstrators.

[jberryhill]

13. You obviously have not been watching the coverage

Maddow looked like Cronkite at the Kennedy assassination with her somber intonation of how there's never been "violence at a political rally in my lifetime, and I'm old".

In my lifetime, two presidential candidates were SHOT at political rallies, and one of them was killed.

Maddow thinking she's "old" is a hoot.

OMG a rally was canceled and some people punched some other people.

The "disco sucks" rally at Comiskey Park was more consequential.

And if you are too young to remember that, please look it up.

[hfojvt]

15. what? she's over 40

She's ancient.

It's been a long, long time since Wallace was shot.

[jberryhill]

17. Well excuse me for living

But I happen to have been around for that.

[brush]

19. Of course I watched the coverage

You seem to not understand that there has been unprovoked violence at several other Trump events toward African Americans and the two outbreaks today at St. Louis and Chicago show the scope of the violence at Trump's events is growing, not to mention that it is being encouraged by a presidential candidate.

Do you actually think that it's to be laughed off because no one has been killed yet, that it's not up to what used to happen in your day?

Why don't you just say "get off my lawn", or, "in my day I walked ten miles to school and back in the snow"?

That you don't seem to grasp the demagogic nature of Trump's campaign and it's potential to harm our country is somewhat startling to be coming from someone on a progressive board.

[Person 2713]

11. Everyone here in Chicago was happy, then I got home came on Du and I hear riot, future race war

now Trump wins for sure and this looks so bad for democrats

Glad all the drama queens and shivering kitties stay where they are

Btw I have been very misunderstood tonight so I will add people were happy about the size of the crowd and the rally being shut down here
Not about the scuffles INSIDE that all took place after they announced Trump isn't coming

Doesn't anyone think that the Trump crowd was angry about coming all the way into the city and waiting for hours and that they were hot headed?

Even the DJs on the radio ride home were talking about the amazing power of it all ( between songs)not "the horror of it all"
There will be more scuffles at various locations after the St Pats parades than went down today if my past experience is any good marker.

[hfojvt]

14. probably not everybody was happy

What would the story be if Bill Clinton's visit to Springfield was shut down because of a large crowd? Would we be talking about the amazing power of it all?

I protested a couple of Bush's visits to Kansas (or one was probably in Missouri) and I was hoping for large crowds, but not to shut down the event.

[Person 2713]

16. People came to protest . Trump campaign shut it down per police statement

A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department says the agency never recommended that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cancel his campaign rally in the city.

CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tells The Associated Press that the department never told the Trump campaign there was a security threat at the University of Illinois at Chicago venue. He said the department had sufficient manpower on the scene to handle any situation.

Guglielmi says the university's police department also did not recommend that Trump call off the event. He says the decision was made "independently" by the campaign.

[21st Century Poet]

27. I'm glad somebody else said it.

I was going to write a post about how the protest could backfire but I figured I'd be shut down myself for daring to say so. People on here, especially Sanders supporters, were elated last night.

The problems I see are that:

1) Ideally, political rallies should never be shut down, even those of morons like Donald Trump. Even idiots should be allowed to air their views.

2) If a Clinton or Sanders rally were shut down by Republican protesters, everybody would be going on about how uncivil, uneducated and rude Republicans are. Guess what Republicans are saying now about Democrats?

3) The protest makes Sanders's 'revolution' (a problematic term) seem a bit more sinister than it actually is, which puts his excellent policies in a bad light, especially coming in the same week when he seemed to flounder a bit while discussing Cuba's revolution. If centre-left folks were considering switching to Sanders, I'm not sure that last night persuaded them to do so. Keep in mind that people outside Democratic Underground tend to be far less 'radical' and 'progressive'.

4) Protesting is great and it is a sacrosanct right but there is a thin line between airing one's views and disrupting others from doing so. When I see people jumping onto a stage and grabbing someone else's microphone to speak (this, bizarrely, happened during a Sanders rally once as well as last night) and people ripping each other's (political) placards up, I get the uneasy feeling that that line has been breached.

5) Worst of all, last night might actually help Trump in the polls. Once again, he managed to dominate the news cycle on all television networks. How does this help Democrats exactly?

I'm sure that many people here will disagree with my opinion but if one looks outside the Democratic Underground bubble, one might find that there is more truth to it than one would wish.

[joshcryer]

18. Trunp'll have to get proper security now.

No big. I just hope they wear hilarious uniforms and give each other salutes.

[WiffenPoof]

20. Go ahead and Put Your Head in the Sand...

No one is saying that this is a huge riot. The fear is that it represents a precursor to even more violence. This phenomenon is growing... We are only witnessing the beginning.

How you could marginalize this event is baffling to me.

P

[eShirl]

21. Is this sarcasm? n/t

[DCBob]

22. This is a big deal and could very well take Trump out.

This incident confirmed what many Republicans have been fearing about Trump. I think this will affect the Tues vote and might be enough to stop Trump from clinching the nomination and cause a contested convention... then who knows what will happen.

[ladjf]

26. This post makes sense. Most of the others in the thread

did not.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. Your photo examples are from Russia, Canada and LA after the Rodney King verdict.

Not exactly 'what happens after a verdict' in that it was what happened after a verdict. Once. With extraordinary motivation.

Also Russia and Canada being presented as 'how the US is'.


I can't believe you are content to see what Trump is doing, it is horrifying.

[Bluenorthwest]

24. Wiki about the Stanley Cup Riot, an event unique enough to be extensively covered....

presented by our esteemed OP as 'what happens after hockey games'...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot

[logosoco]

25. To me, the significance is that this is

evidence that the 99% are fighting each other. This pleases the 1% greatly, because it means more time that they are not rising up against them.

[HereSince1628]

28. Seems that scales fell from some eyes that didn't see what Trumps been playing at

As these things go, it seems unlikely to be the last confrontation over Trump's Know-Nothing approach.

And it's likely that the rationale of 'getting even' for this will create a cycle of escalation.

This may have been much adieu over pushing and shoving, but Brunhilde has yet to sing.

[CanonRay]

29. On the scale of 1968 it was nothing

however; 1) we haven't seen this kind of thing in decades and 2) it is just starting and 3) Nobody knows where this is headed. I know I don't want to be in Cleveland this summer.