Conditions at Columbia University took a turn overnight as school officials called in the NYPD, which began arresting those protesting the Israel/Hamas war. As events unfolded, Donald Trump apparently thought it’d be a good idea to call into Sean Hannity’s Fox News program and share an accusation. The Hill reported:
Former President Trump made unfounded claims Tuesday that pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University contained “paid agitators” as nationwide college campus protests escalate. … Trump claimed in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity during the police operation that many of the protesters did not believe in what they were protesting for.
“I really think you have a lot of paid agitators, professional agitators in here too, and I see it all over,” the former president said, claiming activism experience he does not have. “You know, when you see signs and they’re all identical. That means they’re being paid by a source.”
As The Hill’s report added, “There is no evidence that any protester at Columbia University or any of the nationwide pro-Palestine protests are a paid demonstrator or otherwise not an authentic protester.”
Of course, the fact that Trump is peddling baseless claims against people he doesn’t like, based on no evidence whatsoever, is a familiar problem. But what stood out in this instance was the familiarity of the specific allegation.
In early June 2016 — nearly eight full years ago — when the then-candidate inspired protests, Trump assumed that the people involved couldn’t possibly dislike him. They were, the Republican said at the time, “paid agitators.”
After the GOP candidate prevailed on Election Day 2016, there was related anti-Trump activism. Those involved, he said in November 2016, were “paid protesters.”
Months later, after the Republican’s inauguration, the activism continued. Trump assured the public once more that these Americans deserved to be ignored — because he assumed they were “paid protesters.” The following year, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination inspired another round of progressive activism. The protesters, Trump insisted, were “paid professionals.” (He also made claims about the quality of the protesters’ signs, just as he did on Fox last night.) Now, the presumptive GOP nominee has returned to the same idea in order to dismiss campus protests. When right-wing activists engage in activism, the Republican assumes they’re “very fine people“ and “patriots.” When those Trump doesn’t like gather for protests he disapproves of, he assumes they’re “paid agitators” whose sincerity is inherently suspect.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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