Trump, supporters show their true colors

At a Friday night rally for Donald Trump in South Carolina, the bombastic Trump was holding court to a raucous crowd. One woman slowly stood up in the background staring at him. She wore a white hijab on her head and a turquoise t-shirt saying “Salam, I come in peace.” Her name was Rose Hamid, a 56-year-old flight attendant. Others wearing star-shaped badges (like those worn by Jews in WWII) joined her in silent protest. Some of those stars read “Human,” “Muslim” and “Stop Islamophobia” This happened just as Mr. Trump began railing against the Syrian refugees.

What happened next was frankly as ugly as it was appalling. The crowd turned on the silent protesters shouting “Get Out,” some pointing to Rose reportedly yelling “You have a bomb!” several times. She stood there in silence as more and more people began chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!” Another protester was manhandled out a few rows over by security and police as they ejected him. When it was her turn, she left smiling at it all as a lone police officer escorted her toward the exit. People pushed Trump signs towards her. One man gave her the thumbs down sign in her face. Yet she still had that smile on as she left the building. She didn’t utter a word.

Shortly after she and the others that stood with her were led out, the room erupted in chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

The group was part of a silent protest group led by Jiibril Hough, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte. They were there in response to Trump’s bigoted take on the Syrian refugee crisis and to his equally controversial proposal of temporarily blocking all Muslims from entering the country. The videos of this incident have gone viral. They show the true nature of the Trump campaign. It is but a reflection of the man himself: bigoted, ugly, arrogant, self centered, clueless and without question un-American.

Hamid — an American, by the way — was interviewed by CNN afterward. When asked why she went to the Trump rally, her reply was breath of fresh air to me. “I have this sincere belief that if people get to know each other, one on one, that they’ll stop being afraid of each other and we’ll be able to get rid of all this hate in the world, literally. So that was really my goal, was to let people see that Muslims are not that scary.” She went on to say that the some of the Trump supporters were “quite lovely” talking to her. Some even shared some popcorn. That was before she and the others stood up as Trump launched into an anti Syrian refugee rant. Then things turned south, as the crowd spotted the silent protest a few rows up and behind Trump’s podium.

She commented on that in the CNN interview that “It was really quite telling and a vivid example of what happens when you start using this hateful rhetoric and how it can incite a crowd where moments ago were very kind to me.” I watched many of the videos and I was chilled to see it only took seconds for the lively crowd to change into an angry mob. Thankfully law enforcement was there to keep it from turning into something worse. Ironically she said that she never felt threatened.

It was unclear if Trump really knew what going on behind him. He did turn around but he missed most of it. Afterward he did jump on it saying this to a hate-filled audience: “There is hatred against us that is unbelievable…It’s their hatred, it’s not our hatred.”

Funny thing on that is I saw hatred a plenty spewing from the mouths of his supporters and more than that from Mr. Trump during this gathering and other events prior to this one. I observed none from those protesters and none in that interview with Rose on CNN.

In fact Donald Trump’s entire campaign is based on hate, fear and outright lies. There is very little of truth, justice and the American way coming from Mr.Trump. On a scale of 0 to 100 (100 equals outstanding) he rates a big whopping Zero — especially on the last three. He is far from being anything resembling a person of presidential caliber.

He is The Ugly American.

Daniel D. Grota is a retired U.S. Army veteran with over 21 years in service. He is also a Tuesday morning co-host on KVRF 89.5 FM, Radio Free Palmer. Write to him at news@frontiersman.com.