The office of President of the United States brings with it certain powers; explicit, and vague. The power is too great to have as President a person that is nothing more than a demagogue. Donald Trump would be that President and he is a demagogue.

Last evening, the 11 day of March 2016, violence broke out at a Trump rally in Chicago. Donald Trump after having spoken in a provocative tone on many occasions got what he should have expected. We should not be surprised! Words have consequences. He has egged on his audience by making such comments as “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell ya.”

There is no place for violence in American politics. In his false bravado, he has used the tactics of another time, to inflame his supporters to do acts of violence. In his strategy of us against them he has divided America further. He is lighting a match to a potentially dangerous and inflammatory situation by setting the stage of it being about White America being against Latinos, Muslims and African-Americans. Trump while claiming to want to unite us, is doing nothing other than dividing us.

We have seen demagogues before. Huey Long was a very controversial character back in the 1930’s. He called for a sharing of the wealth. He would have made “Every Man a King.”  He was seen as a very dangerous man who would have had America sink into a class war.

Whether or not we have ever seen a major political figure and in this case a man who is the heavy favorite to become the nominee of one of our major political parties, encourage violence is the question. What happened yesterday in Chicago is more important than any election. Violence is not to be tolerated in our political process, it is far too dangerous to our body politic. Trump seems to be willing to unleash the dark forces of anger that lies beneath the surface of our society. We can not allow anyone to set one part of our American quilt of many colors against another. We are not just White America, we are more than that.