Trump crossed the line with incendiary remark

Donald J. Trump was well aware of what he was saying when he spewed venom about Hillary Clinton – and it wasn’t a joke gone bad, as some of his supporters contend.

Here are Trump’s exact words delivered Tuesday at a political rally in Wilmington, N.C.:

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know. But, but I’ll tell you what. That will be a horrible day – if, if Hillary gets to put her judges in.”

Was the Republican nominee for president suggesting that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, deserves to be a target of assassination?

Or, was he merely saying that people who believe in the absolute right to bear arms should join forces to make sure that the Second Amendment is preserved?

Not surprisingly, Trump, the billionaire businessman from New York City who is making his first bid for elected office, insists that he was advocating political action.

This after the fur hit the fan once news reports of his comments in North Carolina made headlines.

Eager to douse the political flames that have been spreading since Tuesday, Republican Party insiders who support Trump blamed the mainstream media for the controversy.

Indeed, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chalked the presidential nominee’s comment about Second Amendment people stopping Clinton to “a joke gone bad.”

No, it wasn’t a joke. Trump wasn’t laughing when he took aim at his Democratic opponent, and neither were his supporters at the rally.

In fact, there was booing when he claimed – inaccurately, of course – that Clinton wanted to abolish the Second Amendment.

This isn’t the first time the GOP nominee has made controversial statements and then, in the face of public criticism, withdrawn them.

Abortion stance

For instance, in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews several months ago, Trump said that women who have abortions should face some form of punishment if the procedure were outlawed. But he walked back that statement in the face of harsh criticism.

Here’s another example: He advocated barring all Muslims from entering the United States, but then amended his position to say the ban would apply to people coming from countries where terrorist organizations are based.

And so it goes. Day after day, the GOP presidential nominee says something that his supporters immediately embrace, but then changes his tune when the criticism gets too harsh.

Given that record of recklessness, we believe Trump was advocating violence against Clinton and then pulled back when he – or more likely, GOP power-brokers – realized he had stepped over the line.

Read his words again: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know. But, but I’ll tell you what. That will be a horrible day – if, if Hillary gets to put her judges in.”

Trump knows that Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, has not said the Second Amendment should be abolished. But just planting the seed of discontent puts the presidential campaign on a different level.

Here’s an observation from veteran journalist Martin Schram of the Tribune News Service that places the issue in a historical context:

“The ugliness of Trump’s suggestion is a reminder of how close we can be to revisiting a hellish era I have covered far too many times. I was in school when President John F. Kennedy was killed. But I have covered events following the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the two assassination attempts on President Gerald Ford, the assassination attempts that crippled presidential candidate George Wallace, severely wounded President Ronald Reagan, crippled my friend and Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, and severely wounded the heroic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.”

The American people would do well to remember the dark periods in the nation’s political history.