A 29-year-old Georgetown man was led away from U.S. Bank Arena during President Donald Trump’s visit to chants of “Lock him up!” Thursday night after punching an anti-Trump protester.
The brief confrontation was recorded and quickly posted to Facebook. It showed a man, identified by police as 29-year-old Dallas Frazier, climb out of a red pickup truck and repeatedly strike 61-year-old protester Mike Alter in the head, our news partner WCPO-TV in Cincinnati reported.
Alter, who spoke to WCPO, said the protest had been peaceful until Frazier arrived.
Frazier, who was in the pickup’s passenger seat, began shouting at protesters standing on one side of Broadway Street as it drove by. Then, Frazier got out, WCPO reported.
According to police documents, “suspect exited the vehicle, stated ‘you want some,’ then struck the victim multiple times in the face.” He is in the Hamilton County Justice Center and faces an assault charge.
Cincinnati police Lt. Steve Saunders told WCPO that Frazier was the only person arrested Thursday night in relation to the Trump rally. Saunders said he was not aware of any other fights or rally-related incidents requiring police intervention.
President Donald Trump wasn’t — and, apparently, still isn’t — happy that Democrats in Congress didn’t stand to applaud him in his State of the Union address last week.
“They were like death and un-American. Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’ I mean, Yeah, I guess why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean they certainly didn’t seem to love our country that much.”
“The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign’s family.”
Trump loyalists will dismiss all of this as much ado over nothing. He was joking! He didn’t even say that it was treasonous! He was just agreeing with people who said it was treasonous!
Fine. Also, wrong. And missing the point in a major way.
The point? It’s this: Not standing during applause lines for the State of the Union isn’t treasonous or un-American. Not even close.
If it was, all of the Republicans in that chamber are treasonous and un-American as well because when former President Barack Obama would tout his accomplishments in office — as Trump was doing last Tuesday night — lots and lots of Republican legislators would sit on their hands while the Democratic side of the aisle erupted in cheers. And so on and so forth for every president before him (and after).
Then there is the fact that the specific “treasonous” instance Trump was referring to had to do with his touting of historically low African-American unemployment — a bit of a cherry-picked fact based off of a single month’s economic report. By the time the new report for January came out last Friday, black unemployment had ticked up almost a point and was no longer close to a historic low.
Treason is Benedict Arnold. (Side bar: Read Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Valiant Ambition” about Arnold and George Washington.) Treason isn’t refusing to applaud when the President of the United States thinks you should.
Like with many things Trump says or tweets, there’s a natural tendency to just shrug it off. To do that, however, is to miss something very important — and concerning — at work here.
What Trump is saying is that dissent — which is what Democrats are doing when they choose not to clap for a line in his speech — is traitorous and/or un-American. That if these non-clappers really loved the country, they would be applauding when he touted how low black unemployment had dipped under his tenure.
If you think that’s totally OK, flip the script. Put a Democratic president in office. And have him or her chastise Republicans as treasonous because they didn’t applaud for the fact that something close to universal health care has been achieved. Would that be a reasonable charge? Or is it possible that while Republicans agree that more people having health insurance is a good thing, they fundamentally disagree with the way in which it was implemented?
You don’t have to imagine it. Because that’s what happened during several of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses. Except that Obama never suggested those non-clapping Republicans didn’t love America.
Even the suggestion of criminalizing dissent should send a chill down the spine of anyone who counts themselves as a fan of democracy. The right to dissent — without fear of retribution — sits at the heart of what differentiates America from authoritarian countries around the world.
When you have a president float the idea that not clapping at moments when he believes clapping is appropriate sends a very powerful message to the country about how we do (and should) deal with those who disagree with us. And that goes for whether he was “joking” or not.
It’s a very bad message — no matter whether you agree with Trump or not.
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday appeared as if he never ended his campaign, attacking “the extremely dishonest media,” boasting about his “landslide” victory, and dashing speculation he might pivot and start acting like a president.
At a rally in Ohio billed as the beginning of a “thank-you tour,” Trump repeatedly pledged to unite the country and “find common ground.” But his rhetoric, almost word for word, matched the raucous and incendiary rallies of his campaign.
The crowd chanted “lock her up” at the first mention of Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, even though Trump since the election has backtracked on his pledge to prosecute Clinton for her use of a private email server. He galvanized supporters during the campaign by calling her “Crooked Hillary” and alleging she broke the law, even though the FBI cleared her.
“I’m going to discuss our action plan to make America great again,” Trump said on Thursday. “Although we did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary, right?”
The rally followed an earlier event at a Carrier Corp. factory in Indiana, where Trump boasted about his deal with the company to keep 800 jobs from moving to Mexico in exchange for tax incentives.
The two events were Trump’s first public appearances since winning the election last month.
Trump showed at the rally that he prefers campaigning to governing. Since the election, he has reportedly turned away classified intelligence briefings and has resumed tweeting conspiracy theories and late-night ramblings. He has also said he wants to continue holding rallies as president.
Trump on Thursday trotted out a few lies ― as was his style at campaign events. He falsely suggested terrorists are “pouring into our country” and described a “violent crime wave” in America’s cities.
He went on an extended riff slamming “the extremely dishonest media” and pointed at reporters covering the rally for admonishment. Trump’s transition team has restricted press access to the president-elect, setting his administration on a path of secrecy.
Trump also took a stab at a GOP primary rival, Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“Hey, in the great state of Ohio, we didn’t have the upper echelon of politician either, did we?” Trump said, a mocking reference to Kasich, who refused to support Trump and was a vocal critic.
Trump bragged that world leaders have joined in celebrating his victory in phone calls to him.
“They all tell me, they sat in their magnificent rooms in wonderment,” he said. “One of them told me, ‘I truly respect the United States again because of what happened.’”
Those calls have sparked controversy with reports that Trump discussed his businesses with foreign leaders. Trump has already been dogged by conflicts of interest between his elected office and his businesses.
Trump confirmed his appointment of retired Gen. James Mattis as defense secretary, but bizarrely claimed it was a secret until a formal announcement later, telling the crowd: “Don’t tell anyone.”
The president-elect also delivered a healthy serving of pie in the sky ― free of any facts ― just like he did during his campaign. He promised to unify the country and “overcome decades of stalemate and gridlock.”
“Now that you have put me in this position, even if you don’t help me one bit, I’m going to get it done, believe me,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. It would be easier if you helped, but that’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done.”
