Hey hey! Ho ho! Mindless chants have got to go! Donald Trump’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in two days has NBC under fire from the Left. CBS Miami covered the protesters last night in front of NBC’s New York City studios, comprised of left-wing activist groups that are outraged over Trump’s “racist demagoguery.” The group delivered petitions to 30 Rock demanding that NBC cancel Trump’s scheduled gig as host of the comedy show or risk giving the Republican frontrunner “a free national platform to bolster his racist and xenophobic campaign.”

Somewhere, you know The Donald is smiling:

The petitions delivered to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home of NBC and “Saturday Night Live,” marked the latest attempts to dissuade the network from allowing the Republican presidential hopeful to host the show, with the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda earlier asking that NBC reconsider the decision.

“There’s mounting evidence that Donald Trump’s racist demagoguery is resulting in real-world violence and physical and verbal intimidation,” Mushed Zaheed, deputy political director of Credo Action, one of the participating groups, said in a statement. …

“It is shameful for ‘SNL’ and NBC to think that racism can be repackaged as comedy,” said Juan Escalante, digital campaigns manager for America’s Voice, another group participating in the coalition.

Other participating groups included the National Hispanic Media Coalition, MoveOn.org and National Council of La Raza. About two-dozen protesters were on hand as the petitions were delivered to NBC’s midtown Manhattan offices. Some chanted “dump Trump” and carried signs bearing the same phrase.

Maybe we could take this more seriously if leftist protesters could come up with a new chant in 50 years. “Hey hey ho ho, [insert bête noire here] has got to go” passed into cliché about 30 years ago. If you have “DUMP TRUMP” on your placard, we already get the point. Try coming up with something original, or stay home.

It might also be a smart idea not to claim “mounting evidence” of anything without (a) actual mounting evidence, and (b) actual “real-world violence” attached to it. We could make the same claim about the “Hey hey ho ho” chant being linked with “real-world violence and physical and verbal intimidation” to shut down these protests, and have a lot more “mounting evidence” for it. This is why the First Amendment protects speech, and why acts of violence are the responsibility of those who commit them, absent a specific incitement to violence. Of course, the First Amendment also gives these protesters the right to demonstrate and demand Trump get kicked off a television show, but it also gives NBC the right to tell them to pound sand. Given the ratings that Trump will get — no doubt stoked by all of this profile-raising protesting done by the Left — that’s exactly what NBC should do, and likely will do.

In fact, it’s this kind of lame and hysterical reaction that may have some giving Trump a brief moment of sympathy, or at least respect:

https://twitter.com/KirstenPowers/status/662241239648116736

Indeed it is, and a self-defeating one at that.