Donald Trump Suddenly Gandhi, Won't Let Crowd Pummel Protester Even A Little

We can have fun without beating people! Now and then, maybe.

Donald Trump decided to try out a new/old strategy at a rally Wednesday on Long Island, New York, calling on his supporters not to beat the living shit out of a protester . Yes, that is what now counts for "news" in the 2016 campaign: Trump Supporters Do Not Tear Protester Limb From Limb.

[wonkbar]a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/who-would-donald-trump-like-to-punch-in-the-face-today"[/wonkbar]About 25 minutes into the speech Trump is interrupted by a protester, who's inaudible, but you can hear the crowd nearby shouting "Trump! Trump! Trump!" as instructed to, to drown them out. Instead of Trump's usual vehement "Get 'em outta here!" or any reminiscences of the good old days when you could send protesters away in a stretcher, Trump opted for sweetness and light, or at least his version of it. After asking the crowd, "You want him out?" Trump went along with popular opinion and only then said the applause line, "Get 'em out!" while strolling around the stage. Then, apparently deciding he wasn't in the mood to pay any legal fees, Trump added,

"Don't hurt the person, don't hurt the person, do not hurt the person, don’t hurt em, don’t hurt em," Trump said as a man with a red, white, and blue cowboy hat was removed, according to WABC . "Is a Trump rally the greatest?"

Trump stepped off to the side of the stage to say something to an aide -- it was inaudible, but we'll guess it was "Have him followed. Tonight he sleeps with the fishes." Just spitballing there. He then returned to the mic and lamented that no matter how he treats protesters, he gets unfair criticism from the terrible people in the biased media: "You know, I've done it all ways. When I'm like this, they say 'Trump is getting weaker!'" (They don't actually.) "When I'm tough, they say 'He's too tough!' You can't win."

Finally, Trump got on to the familiar campaign schtick he'd been about to get to before the interruption: a dramatic reading of the lyrics to Al Wilson's "The Snake," that great R&B warning about getting intimate with a venomous bastard you should have known better than to have gotten in bed with in the first place. Trump reframes it as ananti-immigration parable, because America lets all those rapists and killers come across the border since we're too tender-hearted. Also, with typical Trumpian accuracy, Trump attributes the song to "the great Al Green," who as far as we can tell never had a thing to do with the song, and never so much as covered it. Pfft. Who can tell these Blacks named "Al" apart, even?

Donald, let's NOT stay together.

[ TPM / ABC News ]