Honestly, does Donald Trump not understand what an internet hoax is or is he trying to get someone killed?
The escalating violence at Trump’s rallies has been the focus of conversation lately as protesters and even journalists, some of them women, have been victims of vicious attacks by Trump’s supporters for daring to exercise their rights to peaceful protest, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press.
There was an incredibly frightening moment during Trump’s response to accusations of inciting violence at these rallies, however, that received very little attention. For a brief moment, Donald Trump tried his level best to indict a protester at one of his rallies in Ohio as a member of ISIS.
At Trump’s rally in Dayton, Ohio on March 12, one protester rushed the stage before Secret Service agents blocked his attempts and took him into custody. Shortly after, Trump tweeted the following image and comment, which has since been deleted.
The man in the image is the man who rushed Trump’s rally stage and his name is Tommy DiMassimo (not Dimassimo, as stated in the image, just one indication that the words and image were not created by DiMassimo). DiMassimo is a university student who has been involved in the anti-racism movement in the US and became a target of a man named Thomas Jenners, whose Facebook account has since been deleted. It was Jenners who posted the image Trump retweeted as well as other taunts toward DiMassimo accusing him of being an ISIS sympathizer. For the record, law enforcement has found absolutely no ties between DiMassimo and ISIS.
Along with the taunts leveled by Jenner, a video surfaced online of DiMassimo dragging and stepping on the American flag during a protest. While many are disturbed by such a demonstration, it isn’t a new form of anti-American policy protest and does not, in any way, necessarily mean that the person demonstrating is a member of the radicalized group of murderers who Jenners attempted to accuse DiMassimo of supporting.
None of that seemed to matter to Trump, however. He latched on to the idea that DiMassimo was, of course, a member of ISIS. Even when more rational heads tried to convince him otherwise, he wanted none of it. That man was ISIS, Trump said, and he really, really wanted people to believe that. The more than 16,000 of his supporters who liked his tweet, apparently, did believe it. Why would Trump do this?
There are a couple of explanations for this.
First, if the wider public begins to believe Trump’s insistence that some of his protesters are “bad dudes” who have done “bad things,” which he has repeated often since being criticized for fanning the flames of violence at his rallies, then both Trump and his supporters are exonerated for that violence no matter how much worse it may become. These aren’t racists attacking a university female of color in Louisville while calling her “n*gger” and “cunt,” these are heroes taking on ISIS! How dare we criticize them?
Second, Trump’s importance and “tough guy” image would be vastly expanded if these accusations were true. Trump is so tough, his supporters would believe, that his in-your-face speeches insisting that he will “bomb the sh*t out of ISIS” has spurred the radicalized group to act against him out of fear. ISIS is so determined to keep Trump from the presidency that they will rush his stages and infiltrate his rallies as protesters to stop him before he stops them. That’s what America needs…a president not afraid to confront them! They know exactly how tough he is and how valid his threats are!
None of the accusations, however, are true, and truth seems to mean very little to Trump and his supporters.
When confronted, repeatedly, with the news that what was written about DiMassimo online was a hoax, Trump’s response was “What do I know about it?” and “I don’t know what they made up, all I can do is play what’s there.”
Really? Does he not understand that not everything on the internet is true, or is he so married to promoting the idea that his protesters are ISIS supporters that he doesn’t mind if he gets someone killed? There is not much that frightens or enrages the far-right than the mere mention of ISIS, so what will happen if that fear and rage translates into a Trump supporter killing a protester because the supporter believes that he or is being threatened by ISIS rather than a college student exercising their right to peaceful protest?
See the video below and you decide, is he that stupid or just that careless?
Featured image screengrab via YouTube
