December 11th 2019

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

During a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania Tuesday night, just hours after House Democrats unveiled articles of impeachment, President Donald Trump criticized an arena security guard for not being sufficiently rough while removing a woman who protested the event.

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"Get her out. Get her out," Trump demanded as his supporters pointed and yelled at the demonstrator, who was wearing a #MeToo hat and holding a sign that read, "Grabbing Power Back."

"See, these guys want to be so politically correct," Trump said of the security guard attempting to escort the demonstrator out of the arena. "You see that? I'll tell you, law enforcement's so great. That particular guy wanted to be so politically correct."

Trump, who has a long history of urging his supporters and law enforcement to attack protesters, went on to mock the security guard for not putting his hands on the woman.

As HuffPost noted, "Trump's call to not be 'politically correct' harkens back to other incidents at his events."

During a rally in 2016, he promised to pay the legal fees of anyone who attacks a protester.

"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?" he said. "Seriously, OK?"

During another event, Trump complained that a protester was receiving high-fives as he left.

"I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you that," he said.

And during a winter event in 2016, Trump told security to take the protesters' coats.

"Throw them out into the cold," he said. "Don't give them their coats. No coats! Confiscate their coats."

Trump's response to the protest Tuesday night marked just one alarming moment in an event that Vox's Aaron Rupar—who live-tweets many of the president's rallies—described as "nakedly authoritarian" and "one of his ugliest and most troubling performances in recent memory."

During the rally, Trump repeated his racist "Pocahontas" slur against Sen. Elizabeth Warren to raucous cheers from his supporters, said the "American nation itself" could collapse if he doesn't win reelection, attacked Medicare for All as a "socialist takeover," jokingly suggested he could stay in office for 29 years, and accused Democrats of attempting to "overthrow our democracy" by moving ahead with impeachment.

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