The dumbest possible response to Trump

It always happens this way. The second that I leave the office at 10 p.m. on Thursday night for a nice little two-and-a-half-day weekend, all hell breaks loose. That was almost literally the case this time, as a crowd of protesters against Donald Trump outside of his evening rally in San Jose ran wild -- trading punches with Trump supporters, burning "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" hats, and even pelting some attendees with eggs. It was arguably the ugliest scene so far amid the ugliest presidential campaign in nearly five decades.

I've never understood how violence helps to make your point, especially in a democracy -- yes, even in a democracy warped by campaign cash, a shallow news media, bizarre restrictions on voting, etc., etc., etc.. It all brings back memories of the 1960s, when people's family members and neighbors were coming home from an utterly pointless war in Vietnam in a box -- and there was incredible justification to protest this in a plethora of ways, from marching on the Pentagon to burning a draft card.

That all made sense, until a tiny band of self-appointed revolutionaries devolved into a group known as the Weather Underground. Members of this collective thought the only meaningful response to the violence in Vietnam was to "bring the war home" -- including a harebrained scheme to bomb officers and their dates at a dance at New Jersey's Fort Dix (they instead blew up their own Greenwich Village townhouse, killing three of the radicals). Responding to violence with violence is amoral, stupid, and always counterproductive. The Weather Underground didn't shorten the war, not by one second.

Although the scale is quite different, I thought of that historical episode as I got home Thursday night and watched the worst of the melee in San Jose. I want to preface this with a divisive opinion: I believe that large-scale, NON-VIOLENT protests of Donald Trump rallies are justified. In fact, I believe that such protests -- a #TrumpResistance, as I've called it -- are warranted. In fact, I think it's necessary.

It was Trump who kicked up this hornet's nest of anger among millions of righteously outraged Americans -- from his campaign kickoff dubbing Mexican migrants as "rapists" to his latest assertion that the judge in the fraud lawsuit against Trump University should step aside because he's "a Mexican" (even though he was in fact born in Indiana and endured death threats from drug dealers in Mexico for bravely prosecuting them). Throw in Trump's unconstitutional proposed ban on Muslims, his too-many-to-count insults to women, his recent shout-out to "my African-American" -- and it's easy to understand why tens of millions don't see Trump as just a worse-than-usual president candidate, but as an existential threat. Who wouldn't fight for his or her human rights under this circumstance?

Trump's relationship to violence is unique in that he -- alone among any major political campaign in modern American history -- has on occasion encouraged a brutal response to protesters. Despite that, in San Jose and during recent unrest in San Diego and Albuquerque, the vast majority of anti-Trump demonstrators were peaceful. But, as we've seen in recent years from Oakland to Ferguson, high-profile protests attract an unwelcome element -- from a certain type of anarchist to just plain crazy folks -- who enjoy throwing rocks and breaking things. Other rank-and-file protesters have, regrettably, joined in. This is wrong, it's moronic and it needs to stop. The sight of a woman getting pelted with eggs for supporting Trump (pictured at top) was especially disgusting.

It's worth pointing out that violence at Trump rallies largely helps one person: Donald Trump, by rallying his supporters and allowing them -- justifiably here -- to claim the mantle of the victim. To return one more second to the 1960s parallels, protests and urban riots then fueled the rise of "law-and-order" candidate Richard Nixon, which in turn gave us Kent State. Cambodia, thousands more dead in Vietnam, Watergate, and six-plus years of national heartache. The stakes with Trump's unique brand of "celebrity fascism" are even higher.

But there's a much bigger and simpler reason to denounce the violence that occurred in San Diego. Brute force, except in moments of self-defense, is morally wrong. Always. It is mankind's greatest sin. Even if you think -- falsely -- that it's preventing the nightmare of a Trump presidency.