In the wake of the protest at Trump’s arena event, many on the Right have been quick to defend Trump as some kind of victim. This is spurious nonsense of the worst kind. Trump picked a fight, the fight came to him, and he cowered. It was a telling moment in his campaign. For a few fraught and frightening minutes liberal protesters succeeded in doing what conservatives have failed to do. They shut Donald Trump up.

For all his big talk, when the protests came he folded his tent and went home. These were chickens coming home to roost for him. For months we have seen how Trump deals with individual protesters. While most politicians politely listen to protestors and then respond, usually with a preface about how the right to protest is uniquely American, Trump took a different approach. He said “get ‘em out.” He said that in the good old days those kind of people got “roughed up.” He said he would pay the legal fees of his supporters who committed acts of violence.

The result of this bravado has indeed been violence. Last week, a Trump supporter sucker-punched a black protester as police led him peacefully out of the arena. Is there any doubt that the man who threw that punch (who has since been arrested) thought he was doing Trump’s bidding? Wasn’t he doing exactly what that sneering and snarling coward, protected by his Secret Service detail, had urged him to do? Trump is apparently looking into paying his thug’s legal fees. We’ll see if he keeps his word on that.