The presidential campaign of billionaire businessman Donald Trump has been marked by a series of controversial statements from him that haven’t negatively affected his chances to win the White House. Since announcing his candidacy in June 2015, Trump has defeated 16 other contenders for the Republican nomination and will face former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the November election.
Those statements have been directed at many minority groups, women and even the handicapped. That approach has emboldened some Trump supporters to express themselves in an even more hostile way toward different demographic groups.
One of the most recent instances came in two short videos, using with a mobile phone on a New York subway. There, a man angrily unleashed his frustration at not getting a seat on the packed subway car by verbally abusing two of the female passengers.
The man, dressed in a white suit and Panama hat, is first seen arguing with a woman who is seated. After the two exchange foul-mouthed insults with each other for approximately 15 seconds, the man walks away and starts exchanging insults with another seated woman. In the midst of describing the first woman in crude terms, he also shouted, “Donald Trump 2016.”
After the second woman simply says, “Enough,” the man suggests that the first woman should be “put back in the fields.” The second woman again tries to get the man to stop while the first woman simply suggests that the man is revealing his true personality.
Those latter comments result in the man once again arguing with the first woman. At the start of this angry tirade, he makes an obscene gesture at her and once again uses foul language to describe her before then challenging her to a fight.
That leads another woman, who’s approximately six inches taller than the man, to finally step in between the two individuals and guide the man away. As he’s departing, the incredulous woman questions his maturity level, asking if he thought he was five years old.
During the entire length of this angry two-minute debate, none of the other passengers in the subway car are heard to say anything and only the aforementioned woman does anything to put an end to the heated discussion.
The invoking of Trump’s name in the middle of a string of angry epithets hearkens back to an issue that had previously been brought up during the Republican primaries. In those cases, individuals that were opposed to Trump, and who expressed their disapproval of him, were met by the taunts of his angry supporters.
One of the main reasons that the anger of those Trump opponents has been so visceral is that he has openly advocated against some minority groups. In his announcement to start his campaign, he spoke of building a wall between the United States and Mexico. His stated reason was because Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers, with later comments made months about banning Muslims also sparking outrage.
To counter those protesters, some individuals that support Trump have used racial epithets or stereotypes to describe minorities. In one instance, a Trump supporter told a protester to, “Go back to Auschwitz,” the site of a Nazi concentration camp.
Some of Trump’s previous speeches have actually advocated that his supporters should punch his opponents. When an African-American protester was being escorted out of one of his rallies, a Trump supporter did just that, leading to his arrest.
The first video has already been viewed over 371,000 times and the second, more than 223,000 times in less than two weeks.