by Tim Gilmore, 3/13/2016
Saturday night, March 12th, in the heart of Riverside, not defacing the storefront in any way, someone projected a BERNIE 2016 sign across the face of the Trump campaign office.
photo by Barry Floore
In the five weeks since I published my story about entering the Trump campaign office in Riverside (Please read the original piece!), Donald Trump has encouraged his supporters to assault protestors, tweeted a Mussolini quote, refused to disavow white supremacist endorsement for his campaign, and said he didn’t know enough about the Ku Klux Klan to refuse their support.
When I wrote the first piece, someone had recently re-rendered a Trump in the campaign office window as Adolf Hitler. Riverside Avondale may well be the largest mostly liberal, educated, and artistic neighborhood in Jacksonville, and it’s interpreted the Trump office as a big middle finger in the neighborhood’s face.
On March 9th, at a Trump rally in North Carolina, a 78 year-old white man named John McGraw punched a black protestor in the face, and later said, “Next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Trump offered to pay McGraw’s legal fees.
This weekend, when protestors effectively shut down a Trump rally in Chicago, Trump blamed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, and warned the Vermont senator to “Watch out,” threatening to send his supporters to Sanders rallies.
courtesy USA Today
We’re yet nine months from the election. The Riverside Trump office is a lightning rod. I’ll continue to update this story.
