–April 5, 2016

The word “assault” seems to be a tagline of the Donald Trump campaign of late, as numerous incidents of assault have been alleged over the past month at various campaign events, with the press stirring the pot with overheated reporting on each supposed event. Of the three primary “assault” incidents receiving the most press coverage, only one deserves to be termed “assault,” one is utter bullshit, and the third represents a case in which the alleged “victim” is actually the assailant.

The first one is easy: On March 9, 78-year-old John McGraw sucker punched a protester who was being led out of a Fayetteville, NC Trump campaign rally by law enforcement. Anyone who’s seen the video will have to agree that it was essentially an unprovoked assault and that McGraw should have been (and was) arrested…or—for those who believe one good punch deserves a like-minded rebuttal—been punched right back by the protestor. No doubt about this one whatsoever—it was an assault.

The second assault, and the one receiving the most coverage, concerns Breitbert news reporter Michelle Fields charge that Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed her by the arm and “nearly threw her to the ground.” And when I say “press coverage,” I mean a ludicrous level of coverage, aided in part by all the other candidates piling on the bandwagon insisting that  Trump should fire the campaign manager for the egregious assault.

Horse-fucking-feathers, I say…. If that incident constitutes “assault” then that bird that landed on the podium in front of Bernie Sanders last Friday was an assassination attempt.

Anyone looking at the video of the incident can see that the campaign manager pulls the journalist away from Trump with about the same force that she was using on the candidate in an effort to make him stop and answer a question. And this after two clear entreaties were made by the Secret Service to please step back from the candidate. The “nearly thrown to the ground” part of the allegation is equally bogus, as she hardly misses a beat in turning around to continue her pursuit of Trump.

As Donald Trump said, “nothing there,” and yes, if that incident is supposed to be an assault, then Trump should file charges against the reporter for her assault on him. The fact that charges have been laid at all is absurd, and is indicative of how…I don’t know…how America is becoming a nation of whiny crybabies (but I guess I’ll save that for another rant).

Oh, and while unsubstantiated, some (admittedly right wing) news sources are now reporting that the “victim” is a serial filer of assault charges, with charges filed against five different people over the years, but with all being dropped.

The third assault incident seemed to be on the verge of garnering massive press coverage, with initial headlines referring to the poor victim as a “teen” or “15-year-old girl,” who was groped and pepper sprayed at a Trump rally in Wisconsin. The story had all the makings of a press-frenzied black eye for Trump, but seems to have been quickly discarded and forgotten. Perhaps because numerous videos have emerged that show that the alleged victim is actually the aggressor and probably deserved to be pepper sprayed.

The incident was videoed by numerous people in the crowd, and can be viewed as it unfolds from just about every angle. From everything I’ve seen in the videos the girl is aggressively arguing with an older man, gets more and more agitated and starts heaving her girth at him while getting more and more agitated. The man is obviously trying to back away from her, but is stymied by the crowd. The man’s hands are up in the air as if to say I don’t want any part of you, and then she starts screaming about how he had groped her (ahem, “total bullshit!”). And then she hauls off and sucker punches him in the face, and someone else in the crowd (rightfully) nails her with pepper spray.

I say rightfully because all video evidence shows her to be the aggressor, and it’s obvious that the man accused of groping was only trying to get away from the belligerent cow. She sucker punched him and got hit back in return—end of story. At least it should be….

Oh, and for the record, I did not write this in support of Trump, I wrote it in support of “truth.” Something that will undoubtedly get in shorter supply as this race continues to unfold.

—Originally published April 1 in Hash It Out!