Donald Trump’s Heated Words Were Destined to Stir Violence, Opponents Say
By MICHAEL BARBARO, ASHLEY PARKER and TRIP GABRIEL MARCH 12, 2016
nytimes.com
In foreboding conversations across the political world this past year, a bipartisan chorus warned that the 2016 presidential campaign was teetering on the edge of violence.
The anger from both sides was so raw, they concluded — from supporters of Donald J. Trump who are terrified they are losing their country and from protesters who fear he is leading the nation down a dark road of hate — that a dreaded moment was starting to look inevitable. “I don’t see where that anger goes,” the historian Heather Cox Richardson predicted a few weeks ago, “except into violence.”
This weekend it finally arrived.
The ugly and chaotic clashes that unfolded on Friday inside a tense Chicago arena between Trump supporters and a coalition of protesters were the culmination of an extraordinarily indignant year in public life in which those on both sides of a widening divide have begun to see their fellow Americans as a fundamental threat to their economic future and basic dignity.
By Saturday, it was clear that the past 48 hours were something of a turning point in the presidential race. Demonstrations at Trump rallies persisted, leading to a panicked moment near Dayton, Ohio, when Secret Service agents briefly encircled the candidate after a man leapt over a security barrier and rushed toward the stage.
And Mr. Trump’s rivals in both parties denounced his candidacy as the match that lit the fire, even as they try to harness the same electoral forces that have turned him into the Republican front-runner. “Donald Trump has created a toxic environment,” Gov. John Kasich of Ohio declared. “There is no place for a national leader to prey on the fears of people.”
Senator Marco Rubio, fighting for his political life in Florida’s primary on Tuesday, likened Mr. Trump to a third-world strongman. Hillary Clinton accused Mr. Trump of committing “political arson,” saying that “the ugly, divisive rhetoric we are hearing from Donald Trump and the encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong, and it’s dangerous.”
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