In response to canceled Trump rally protest, ticket claims

Recently I sent an email to the members of Cape Girardeau County Democrats, and it was released to conservative news media, generating a storm of emotions. I suggested that anyone interested could protest the now-canceled Trump rally by getting, but not using, tickets. There has been much negative press, as well as many calls and emails to the local office of the CGCD ranging from the mildly negative to actual death threats. Most insidiously, there are suggestions from Republicans that this "plot" did not originate with CGCD but was handed down from the State Democratic Central Committee or even an elected official.

This is patently ridiculous. Obtaining a ticket you don't plan to use is a strategy widely employed by political and social protesters. Social media are full of suggestions advocating this method of public dissent. Additionally, this tactic is probably fruitless. Even if Democrats obtained a thousand tickets, most people with tickets would not get in. The Trump campaign routinely overbooks its events, so failing to use your ticket is unlikely to lead to an empty seat. (See The Washington Post, January 7, 2016, for this headline: Donald Trump issues 20,000 tickets to rally in venue that holds 1,400 people). Hardly a cause for the invective and threats that have erupted in Cape Girardeau.

That is my main concern. Democrats in Cape Girardeau County come in many shapes and colors. They farm, they teach, they're electricians, plumbers, parents and grandparents. These threats, this hatred, can't come from our neighbors, whose children we teach. Not from our fellow Christians we chat with in church and over our backyard fence. Not from the workers who help us renovate our homes and repair our cars. Not from the people we exchange smiles with every day.

Can they?

Jonathan Kessler is the chairperson of the Cape Girardeau County Democratic Committee.