Is the media inciting violence against Donald Trump?

A GROWING number of commentators in the US believe the media is pushing members of the public to try to assassinate Donald Trump.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at a campaign event in Tampa, Fla., Monday, March 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

THE media wants a member of the public to kill Donald Trump.

That’s the view of a growing number of commentators, who have sounded warnings about the increasingly dangerous tone to media reporting around the Republican presidential hopeful.

In a lengthy blog post, Scott Adams, the creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip, has slammed the media for “priming the public to try to kill Trump”, likening the conduct to the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

The author recalled how a mere three months earlier, in his book The Dilbert Future, he predicted: “In the future, the media will kill famous people to generate news that people will care about.”

Fast-forward to today and “we see the media priming the public to try to kill Trump, or at least create some photogenic mayhem at a public event,” he writes.

“Again, no one is sitting in a room plotting Trump’s death, but — let’s be honest — at least half of the media believes Trump is the next Hitler, and a Hitler assassination would be morally justified.

“Also great for ratings. The media would not be charged with any crime for triggering some nut to act. There would be no smoking gun. No guilt. No repercussions. Just better ratings and bonuses all around.

“In the 2D world of reason, no one in the media consciously wants a candidate for president to be injured, and no one is consciously acting in a way that would make it happen.

“But in the 3D world of persuasion, society has decided to lance the wart that is Trump. Collectively — the media, the public, and the other candidates — are creating a situation that is deeply dangerous for Trump.”

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has slammed the media. Picture: Marcio Jose Sanchez

Pointing out that it would be just as easy to “build a list of why Trump is definitely not like Hitler”, Adams says “so far, [the media] have chosen (subconsciously I assume) the Hitler analogy all the way”.

“So now we have a situation in which two-thirds of the country and most of the mainstream media believe Trump is a Hitler-in-the-making that must be stopped,” he writes.

“Only the mainstream media can remedy this situation and apparently that is not financially advantageous. So don’t expect anything but escalation in the disruptions and violence.

“The Secret Service will do a great job of protecting Trump. But even so, his odds of surviving the next year are dropping quickly. I put the odds of an attempted assassination at about 25 per cent before November.”

It comes after 24-hour news network CNN granted a sit-down interview to 22-year-old Thomas DiMassimo, the protester who attempted to rush the stage at a Trump rally in Ohio.

Mr DiMassimo, who was released on bail after being charged with inducing panic and disorderly conduct, claimed he only intended to grab the microphone.

But the theatre student had previously tweeted his violent plans to followers. “Let me into a Trump rally I’m smacking fire into and see how his wig cap hold up,” he tweeted on March 6.

He later tweeted a picture of Trump with a gun and winking face emoji, said he would “spit on their false king”, and replied “we gone [sic] see” to a follower saying “punch him plz”.

Moments before rushing the stage, he tweeted, “I’m at this you know what rally bout to you know what”, adding “the goal is martyrdom”.

Raheem Kassam, London editor-in-chief of conservative online news outlet Breitbart and former adviser to Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), has sounded a similar warning.

“I was hired to be UK Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage’s senior adviser. I was supposed to be a sounding board for ideas, with a trumped-up job title. In reality, I served as an extra member of his security team,” he wrote.

“So Mr Trump, like Mr Farage, has been portrayed as the progenitor of violence, despite the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters shut down his rally in Chicago last night.

“And despite the fact that someone tried to jump Mr Trump on stage in Ohio today. The problem, to these people, is Mr Trump. Not their own, barbaric, in-built (and often inbred) violent tendencies.”

The mainstream media, alongside the politicians running against Trump on both sides, are “creating the conditions in which it would be totally ‘understandable’ if there were an attempt on Trump’s life”, he wrote.

A number of social media users have been visited by FBI and Secret Service agents for making threats on Trump’s life, Mashable reported. “If you see anything that applies on Twitter, we’re going to investigate it,” a Secret Service spokesman said.

On Sunday, a leader from a civil rights organisation resigned after posting on Facebook that Trump supporters should be shot before election day, Fox News reported.

Protesters are removed from a Trump rally. Picture: Gerry Broome

The post by Loring Wirbel, co-chairman of the Colorado Springs chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union also made a reference to Nazism.

“We have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is [Nazi propaganda minister Joseph] Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him, I will have to shoot you before Election Day,’” Wirbel wrote last Monday.

He resigned Thursday but told a local newspaper that his post was intended “totally as a joke”. Wirbel also suggested the post was taken out of context, which he called “smear politics”, while acknowledging that the post could be viewed as offensive.

The post was removed but reposted by Daniel Cole, executive director of the El Paso County Republican Party, resulting in Wirbel resigning as a volunteer chapter representative, according to The New York Daily News.

“It’s a new take on voter outreach: shoot them,” Cole wrote in his Facebook post that accompanied Wirbel’s post.

He also reportedly said Wirbel’s post was “beyond” unacceptable, considering the recent mass shooting at the Colorado Springs-area Planned Parenthood centre.

The ACLU reportedly condemned Wirbel’s post and made clear that social media posts on members’ personal accounts don’t represent those of the civil rights organisation.

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— with Fox News