Ted Cruz has been getting heat for suggesting the Trump campaign was responsible for the culture of his campaign. After news spread of Trump’s rally in Chicago being cancelled due to violence between protestors and supporters, Cruz made the following verbal statement:
“Political discourse should occur without a threat of violence, without anger and rage and hatred directed at each other. We need to learn to have disagreements without being disagreeable, to have disagreements while respecting human beings on the other side. Earlier today over 30 people were arrested at one rally, and then tonight, as violence broke out, the rally was cancelled all together. The responsibility with that lies w protestors who took violence into their own hands.
But at any campaign, responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate is responsible for the culture of the campaign, and when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this nasty history.”
Watch that statement below:
News of the rally’s cancellation came just one day after Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields alleged she was manhandled by Trump’s campaign manager for asking Trump a question about affirmative action. At this time, the Trump campaign has yet to acknowledge the incident as truthful despite audio and video recordings of the exchange.
Cruz’ alluded to the incident with Fields in his remarks last night and also referred to the Trump campaign’s disrespect and documented encouragement of violence against dissidents at campaigns.
Here, Trump encourages his supporters to “knock the crap out of” anyone that throws tomatoes at him. Because tomatoes are not typically brought to campaign rallies, it is assumed that Trump meant any protestor with or without tomatoes. Watch Trump suggest this below:
Although Trump appeared to be talking to rally goers, the suggestion that Trump was speaking only to security is flawed as well. A security team that knocks out a nonviolent protestor would be responsible for assault. If and only if a protestor is violent may the security personnel take measures to subdue him.
In my opinion, Donald Trump is in no way responsible violent acts committed by the protesters in Chicago or any where else. There were, however, acts of violence committed by both sides. Because Trump is in a position of considerable power, he has the ability to discourage potentially violent supporters from acting.
Just as President Obama is not responsible for the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, neither is Trump responsible for violence committed by protestors or by his supporters. Trump does, however, have a responsibility to discourage violence committed by his supporters. Do you believe Trump has discouraged violence?
