Protestors plan to sabotage the appearance of President Donald Trump in Topeka next weekend, and the Kansas City Star does its best to encourage the sabotage.
“Riley Vittitoe has his ticket for next weekend’s Trump rally in Topeka,” begins this perversely cheery article by Mike Hendricks. “With luck, he’ll get in — so he can turn his back on the president and walk right back out.”
“Some people want to get in there right when the president takes the podium and just walk out,” Vittitoe tells Hendricks. “Others are planning on going inside and then protesting outside with signs.”
Vittitoe, the owner of Elem Technologies in Topeka, has a grudge that transcends Trump. On his Facebook page, he posts a meme of Judge Brett Kavanaugh with the words “They’re sending rapists.” Another describes “mainstream” Republicans as a “festering f***tangle of racists, Nazis, child molesters, and blackout-drunk, gang-raping prep school boys.”
Adds Hendricks gleefully, “And yet other ticket-holders don’t plan on going at all, thinking that a whole lot of empty seats Oct. 6 at the Kansas ExpoCentre would embarrass Donald Trump as he campaigns for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an early Trump supporter.”
“Hurt his ego with a no show crowd,” Hendricks quotes one woman’s Facebook post. Indeed, Hendricks identifies not a single person from the Trump camp–or from mainstream America for that matter–who might take issue with the collective dirty tricks of the anti-Trump crowd.
The word “promotes” in the headline is not an overstatement. The Hendricks’ article include this happy invitation to sabotage: “[Vittitoe] been encouraging fellow members of the group Topeka Indivisible to visit the donaldjtrump.com website and, like him, RSVP for the event.”
When President Obama visited Kansas City in 2014, the Star wrote a series of puff pieces and made no effort to celebrate the protesters. “There was a small gathering of protesters outside the theater when Obama arrived late Wednesday morning,” wrote Dave Helling and Allie Hinga. “Some of the signs objected to the Affordable Care Act, while others criticized the U.S. position on the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.”
The headline amuses in retrospect, “In Kansas City, President Obama urges opponents to stop ‘hating all the time.’” Now if only the Star would urge Trump’s opponents to do likewise.