Last week, Donald Trump was addressing a large crowd in Burlington, Vermont, when he was interrupted by a series of protestors who raised their voices against him. Soon, he asked security to remove the disruptive audience members, asserting his power in a legitimate manner so that he could continue with his remarks.
But that wasn’t enough for the billionaire.
Standing before a crowd of supporters and acting on an impulse, he piled on, ordering security personnel at the event to seize the coats of the protestors in addition to kicking them out. “Get him outta there! Don’t give him his coat,” he said on one occasion. “Keep his coat. Confiscate his coat. You know it’s about 10 degrees below zero outside. No, you can keep his coat. Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.” In the clip below he gives those orders near the beginning and the end.
In the present campaign, voters are deciding whether various candidates can be trusted with the extraordinary power that is vested in the president of the United States.
Who will use that power with wisdom and restraint?
Trump can’t help but abuse the power of presiding over a rally. His supporters believe that he will stand with little guys against elites. Yet there he was amid thousands of fans ordering hired muscle to strip powerless dissenters of their coats. There he was saying they should be turned out into the Vermont winter that way.
