Pathetic small crowd gathers outside Trump Tower for Donald Trump’s indictment
For days we’ve heard endless media hype about how Donald Trump’s supporters would carry out wide scale organized violence in response to his criminal indictment. Of course this narrative was only a result of Trump vaguely trying to incite such violence in a recent social media post. But what not everyone gets is that Trump posts this stuff because he wants us running around in a panic with our hair on fire, telling anyone who will listen that he’s going to somehow magically defeat the criminal justice system through the use of violence.
In reality, the only proper response to Trump’s incitement is to line up an overwhelming law enforcement presence so that Trump’s supporters would have no chance in any violent conflict they might initiate, and just as importantly, make them realize they have no chance so they’ll just stay home. By all accounts Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is already coordinating with numerous law enforcement agencies on this, and we’re already seeing images of barriers and such being erected.
So while it’s important that we condemn Trump for trying to incite violence, it’s just as important that we don’t do his PR for him by running around insisting in a panic that he can just “violence” his way to getting whatever he wants. Portraying Trump as being omnipotent is not only inaccurate, it’s a bad idea.
If anything, we should be mocking Donald Trump for being too weak to have figured out how to avoid getting indicted, so that his supporters will be forced to reckon with what a weakling he is. Right wingers only respond to Trump because they perceive him as being strong. We want to force them to perceive Trump as being weak.
To that end, right now there appear to be maybe five Trump supporters outside Trump Tower:
BREAKING: A massive crowd has gathered in from of trump Tower. There are many fives of them!!!
FIVES OF THEM!!!!!🤣💀https://t.co/B6XiWO1swJ
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) March 20, 2023
Will that number grow once the indictment comes down, and once Trump is arrested? Maybe. But as of now, very few Trump supporters are even bothering to show up in support of him. Part of that is surely because they see the overwhelming law enforcement presence they’d be up against if they tried anything violent. And part of it may be that they only love the idea of a strongman, and Trump’s indictment and arrest simply make him look weak.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report