Was the Cancelled Chicago Event a Deliberate Setup by Trump?

[Bragi]

Driving home from a concert on Saturday night I ended up listening on satellite radio to Fox News (don’t judge me, it was research!) where I listened to a boisterous former GOP organizer say something that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

What he said was basically this (I’m paraphrasing): “No GOP candidate or operative in their right mind would book a facility for a Chicago rally that was located on the University of Illinois campus, in a highly diverse district where there isn't a GOP voter for miles around, unless they actually wanted to provoke opponents and encourage them to attend the event.”

He went on to say that it looked very much to him like the Chicago event was, in fact, a setup by the Trump campaign to organize an event that they could plausibly cancel so as to make it look as though the threat of violence was real, that “it’s the other guy’s fault, not ours” and that Trump was a victim of violence, not a perpetrator.

If this is indeed so, then the event was an enormous success, since everyone, especially the media, seems to have been properly duped.

Also, it means Trump’s operatives are far more clever than they are generally perceived to be.

(PS -- Hello. I've been absent for some time, but wanted to post this.)

[WhiteTara]

1. Yes it was. He's a con artist. nt

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

2. Absolutely.

I don't know if he expected this large of a response - he may have done it just to insure he would have protesters and not with the intention to cancel. He absolutely knew what he was doing, though.

[surrealAmerican]

3. I think it was a set up ...

... but I don't think it played out the way Trump wanted it to. He may have expected to see the police beat up on the protesters outside the venue. Once it was clear that there were more protesters than supporters inside, he called off the event.

[Bragi]

6. Possibly, but I dunno

I'd be interested to know what was happening on social media before the Trump ally. In particular, were at least the usual efforts made by the Trump campaign to drive attendance by supporters, to get their people into the hall early, etc. And since they were deliberately holding the event in a facility without a GOP voter for miles around, were they upping their recruitment efforts to ensure attendance? If not, then that would also suggest (to me, anyway) this was a setup from the outset.

[GaYellowDawg]

4. I don't think it was.

I think he intended to go into Chicago to be defiant, got caught off guard by the magnitude of the response, and basically chickened out because he didn't want to go into a venue where his followers didn't greatly outnumber his protesters. I think everything he's said and done since then has been to deflect the appearance of weakness.

[Else You Are Mad]

5. I think it was...

If this campaign cycle has shown us anything, it is that Trump knows how to play the system in order to get maximum press coverage. I would be more surprised if this was an accident, he knew that chaos at an event would 1) supersede anyone else's coverage the weekend before what very well may be the most important for him this primary & 2) allow him to play the victim of the 'violent liberal thugs' that the GOP base believes is ruining this nation -- a narrative that the conservatives will eat up.

It is at our own peril if we underestimate Trump's ability to manipulate and con the public and the media. After all, he has been at it since the 80s.

[Lint Head]

7. Which would make him even more of a horrible individual.

He's an obvious sociopath. He would endanger his own followers to further his despicable cause.

[WolverineDG]

8. I think he intended to show up

if only to provoke violence in the streets. But Kasich was shutting him down in Ohio & had a town hall planned on MSNBC that night, so by cancelling his event, Trump was able to get wall to wall coverage that night AND shut down Kasich's town hall.

[oberliner]

9. No

There were several groups of activists in and around Chicago who wanted to shut down his rally and show the country that Trump was not welcome in Chicago and they did so.