• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, March 14, 2016

Violence at Donald Trump rallies has escalated of late, and his reactions to these events are troubling members of both parties. Racially charged language and what sounds like forced semi-condemnations of the perpetrators puts Trump’s objection to supporters attacking protesters in question.

Trump’s words themselves point to incitement of violence toward demonstrators -- The Washington Post went so far as to ask: “Could Donald Trump be held legally responsible for inciting violence at his rallies?”

Going back months, there have been documented cases of beatings and general violence at his rallies. The GOP front-runner has gone so far as to tell supporters he would pay legal fees for those who get in trouble with law enforcement. The pot Trump has been stirring boiled over on Friday, in Chicago, for what most likely will be the first of many occasions.

The altercations became so intense in Illinois that the Trump campaign decided to reschedule the event. Police reported five arrests, but said the authorities had nothing to do with the event’s cancellation -- contradicting statements from the Trump team.

Sunday morning shows pressed Trump on the escalating violence.

Both John Dickerson of CBS’s “Face the Nation” and Chuck Todd of NBC’s “Meet the Press” probed the GOP front-runner on whether he would take any responsibility for the turbulence at his rallies.

Trump’s responses sounded calculated and fell short of condemning any supporters’ aggressive behavior. Speaking with Chuck Todd, he said, “I don’t accept responsibility, I do not condone violence in any shape.” The reasoning then becomes slightly muddied. “From what I saw, the young man stuck his finger up in the air, and the other man sort of just had it.”

Trump is entering dangerous territory by rationalizing a supporter sucker punching a protester, in response to a gesture, at a rally in North Carolina, last Wednesday. To some, that sounded like a tacit endorsement of such actions.

The next night, at the GOP debate, Trump explained, “We have some protesters who are bad dudes. They have done bad things. They are swinging. They are really dangerous, and they get in there and they start hitting people.”

According to Janell Ross of The Washington Post, the use of “dudes” was “racially charged” and “primitively coded.” She added: “This was the actual employment of language and logic used to justify cross burnings, lynchings and all manner of illegal, extra-judicial and inhumane behavior in U.S. history.”

Trump is a new kind of populist politician ushering in a new era of acceptable and expected violence not seen for decades in the American political arena. He accuses Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign of coordinating the protests, adding warnings of retaliatory actions against it.

As veteran John Heilemann of Bloomberg Politics said on his show With All Due Respect, “The mood in these crowds is something that I have not seen doing this for the past 25 years. I don’t think you’ve ever seen it at a presidential campaign rally, and it happens at almost every Trump event. It’s disturbing. It’s weird.”