Jones: Trump's assault on decency

"THE NEXT time we see him we might have to kill him."

That's what 78-year-old bespectacled John McGraw said in a North Carolina drawl, his cowboy hat resting atop his head as he spoke proudly into a camera. Just moments earlier, McGraw had blindsided protester Rakeem Jones with a vicious elbow as police led Jones out of a political rally for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

McGraw, who was later charged with assault and disorderly conduct in connection with the incident, said he liked striking Jones. Trump, for his part, said he might pay McGraw's legal fees, because, among other things, McGraw obviously loves this country.

But if one's love for America is measured in our willingness to deny fellow citizens their First Amendment rights, if it's measured in our eagerness to punch out dissent, if it's measured in the haughty display of outright bigotry, we must redefine the meaning of love. Because love doesn't strike out in violence.

As a writer, I see this as a turning point in America's story, because if we allow ourselves to believe that those who love America must prove it by violently crushing dissent, then we have returned to a previous chapter in our story. We have, in essence, gone backward.

There was a time not long ago when black men who dared to speak up in America risked their lives in doing so. They were burned and lynched. They were beaten and scarred. And if they happened to survive the encounter with those who claimed to act out of love for this country, they would hear a voice much like that of 78-year-old Trump supporter John McGraw, ringing out in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, or the cotton fields of Macon Georgia, or the mountains of West Virginia.

"The next time we see him we might have to kill him."

Such was the price of dissent.

And in Trump's America, that could very well be the price again.

I watched the cellphone video that appeared to show activist Mercutio Southall Jr., being beaten by white men after shouting "Black lives matter!" at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Ala. Perhaps more troubling, I watched Trump's reaction.

"Maybe he should have been roughed up," Trump told the Fox News Channel, "because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble."

Trump is weighing paying McGraw's legal fees.

"I do want to see what the man was doing because he was very taunting," Trump told CNN. "He was very loud, very disruptive. And from what I understand he was sticking a certain finger up in the air."

In any other context, that kind of blame-the-victim reaction would be universally condemned. But for Trump, whose bigoted statements have driven his popularity, such statements only raise his profile.

It doesn't matter that Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders took turns condemn Trump as a "political arsonist" or "pathological liar" at a Democratic town Hall.

Denouncements from Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz mean little in the scheme of things.

Donald Trump, who has carved out a niche as a leading presidential contender, has advocated violence against those who are not like him, and unless those of us who could be victims of that violence stand up against it, we are helping to further that message.

I could be Rakeem Jones, wrestled to the ground by police officers after being assaulted. You could be Mercutio Hall, Jr., kicked and beaten by a gang of men after daring to voice dissent.

Any of us who dare to speak out against Trump could very well survive the initial assault. But if we fail to stand up now, we will hear the frightening refrain of a new political reality.

"The next time . . . we might have to kill him."