Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the explosive violence that took place in San Jose, California Thursday night at a Trump rally.

The poster child for the violence became this woman, egged in the face after egging on the crowd while allegedly being trapped outside with them.

But it went way beyond egging, with fights and beatings and complete intolerance for diversity of opinion.

It was an altogether frightening scene and the violence is inexcusable and frankly, dumb if what you’re trying to do is rally people around the idea that Trump is a danger to American ideals.

It’s not just violence however. Young protestors, often so-called progressives & liberals, just can’t seem to contain themselves when presented with opposing opinions. As we’ve all seen with Milo Yiannopoulos, British provocateur who regularly has his college campus appearances shut down by screaming crowds of protesters going into convulsions over his “dangerous” words.

It’s a common tale in today’s overly-triggered political climate. And being overly-triggered, in addition to the myriad of ways that conservative media helped pave the way for this candidate, is part of what helped Trump’s rise. An oversensitive population found offense in everything and eventually a large segment decided they’d had enough. Now nothing is deemed offensive.

Well, almost nothing.

On Thursday night, as the news about the protests was spreading, I quickly glanced at a photo of the girl who got egged. From my quick look, I just saw a woman with yolk in her hair. It seemed something akin to getting red paint tossed on you or being glitter bombed. Annoying perhaps, but not the kind of violence that was seen elsewhere I thought.

So I tweeted this.

And all she did was try to make America great again. https://t.co/brlz4aP99z

— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) June 3, 2016

Within minutes of that I saw more info about how violent things had gotten so I tweeted this.

Hey anti-Trump protestors: you’re doing it wrong and making people like Trump. Stop it you idiots. — Ben Howe (@BenHowe) June 3, 2016

People over the course of the night took issue with my tweet. They started telling me I was supporting assault of women and so on. When I woke up in the morning and saw these tweets, I found it somewhat amusing. I hadn’t done any such thing. As far as I was concerned, the violence was abhorrent but this lady had gotten nothing more than a prank and people were being silly. That’s when I tweeted my now infamous tweet.

Plenty of unacceptable violence last night. But I’m sorry. I refuse to think of egging (a Halloween prank) as violence against women.

— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) June 3, 2016

This opened up a storm starting with Gateway Pundit who gave me my own click-bait headline starting with “SICK!” You know, because I’m sick, since I support abuse of women. However, by the time Mr. Pundit posted this, I’d actually finally watched the video and did agree it was a frightening situation.

Ok, so that’s two tweets now that “I’m better than.” I can accept that I let my anger get the best of me sometimes. No one deserves assault. — Ben Howe (@BenHowe) June 3, 2016

I’m not above saying I’m wrong. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Apparently it is. Lesson learned. Now let the barrage continue.

— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) June 3, 2016

But did it matter? Of course not! A quick look at the views on my retractions upon seeing the video (though I maintained she was acting like an idiot in a potentially dangerous situation) vs the views on my “offensive” comment shows how Outrage Media works. It only focuses on the aspects that gets people in a huff because that equals clicks.

Ok, so I spoke about something without having all the facts. I retracted my initial perception of it and confirmed that no one should be assaulted for speaking their opinion.

So how DO I maintain the high road with Trumpkins after walking the low road in this incident? Oh, that’s easy. Enjoy the responses at the bottom of this post and understand they are only a taste of what I’ve received in response to my sin.

Once Breitbart News wrote not one, but two “articles” about the tweets, it was open season on me, my family, my work, my marriage, whatever you can think of.

You see, in the world of Donald Trump, you bring a tank to a knife fight. Not because you want to win the fight for righteous reasons. But because you think it’s really cool how people’s blood & guts fly everywhere when they’re hit.

But I’m not interested in being on their level and I’m not concerned I am in danger of it. The Trumpkins, the Trumpists, whatever you want to call them. They have shown their true colors to me day and night for months. They’ve shown it to me in their television interviews. In their false libelous stories they’ve written about me and others. In their attempts to dig up addresses of people they disagree with to go to their homes and intimidate them which yes, has happened.

Their God-man-child not only approves, he encourages the behavior.

We maintain the high ground by not approving of violence in response to speech and continuing to point out what low-level scum these people are. If we mess up, give in to our own anger or speak out of an ignorance of facts as I did, we retract, we apologize, we reaffirm our standing principles. We continue to separate ourselves in that way from this garbage of society that has planted their roots firmly in the Republican party and is filled, as you’ll see below, with white supremacists calling themselves “race realists.” Xenophobes calling themselves immigration hawks. And basically just a bunch of awful people.

Could there be good people that support Trump? And by support I’m not talking about your casual “ok, he won so I’ll support the party” support (though they also deserve a special kind of scolding). I’m talking about the “THANK THE LORD JESUS FOR DONALD TRUMP” crowd. Are there good people among that energized group?

I have no idea. But I doubt it.

@BenHowe Might just be justice coming to you.

— James Pomeroy (@JamesPomeroy8) June 3, 2016

@Cernovich @BenHowe Post his home address. If he is near me ill pay him a visit.

— Dew Master (@MrDewMaster) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe @SooyWings @Support Pretty sure they found you m8. Good luck?

— Viktor Vyle (@ViktorVyle) June 3, 2016

@TheMikeReidShow @lb_miriam @BenHowe Life is good 🙂 and for #Scumbag Howe, its about to get Interesting.

— Nunaya Biddness (@NunayaBiddness) June 3, 2016

@lb_miriam @BenHowe We need to post all these skunks addresses

— I Stand With Trump! (@Barb4TRUMP) June 3, 2016

oh come on @BenHowe, publishing your address is no worse than glitterbombing, no? crying to twitter is redic, we need protection from you!

— Pat A. (@PAnderson072) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe Its my opinion the next time I see you that you were egging me on and I will just whip your ass. That sound ok to you ?

— Mike Jeansonne (@sowtrout) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe Can some post Ben's home address?

— Miriam Becker (@lb_miriam) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe @Jacobnbc you are a total fag. Better hope I don't bump into you or I'll be pasting your busted head all over Twitter

— capitalist4life (@mgrove777) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe And Trump ppl are hard working patriotic whites while anti-Trump forces are illegals, thugs, jobless, anti-white parasites. — Bobby Layne (@UHaverbeck) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe @ToniMZ81 @Jacobnbc go fuck your mother filfthy jew!

— Haidrich (@Haidrich3) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe Man, you are really sickening. Willing to do anything, no matter how unethical, to increase your standing w/ Jew neo-con handlers — EricStriker (@Pr0tocolsrReal) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe White American utilizing her 1st amendment right is attacked by the violent brown savages you people let in #cuck4mexico

— W.W.H.D. (@W_W_H_D_) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe I hope your mother is a victim of mob violence. I hope they surround her and egg her face while screaming profanity. #GrowUp — (((Richard Altman))) (@DonSutherland66) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe Hey, you FAT PIECE OF SHIT. Watch your back on the street.

— DesperateForTruth (@OnlyDespairNow) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe @Cernovich The only ppl I see getting raped around here nowadays is traitors. Oh and white women…Mexicans and Blacks love 2 rape. — Asgardian (@WarOWhites) June 4, 2016

@BenHowe you’re a piece of shit. If I ever see you in person, I’m throwing eggs at you. pic.twitter.com/nswYQDBBap

— Pumba (@thegreatpumba1) June 3, 2016

@BenHowe @gatewaypundit @NolteNC you’re a nasty pathetic #cuck waste of a human being drink bleach and die you piece of shit — Otto Von Bismarck (@0ttovonbismarck) June 3, 2016

@thinkingzionist @BenHowe @milkandbenzos We are well aware the the Jews incited the negro to cause trouble for the white man.

— Gentleman Jim Crow (@gentjimcrow) June 5, 2016

@BenHowe fat ass cracka faggot I bet not catchu on the street

— Jamaal Williams (@187RUthIess) June 5, 2016

@BenHowe @k_mcq
Have you seen Katie? She is one of our typical White beauties. Of course Browns/Blacks are after her. Seen their women?

— CanadianLucifer (@ConCanadian) June 5, 2016

@BenHowe It's not just that, moron. Hispanics will never ever become freedom-loving Americans. Even our magic dirt is not enough.

— Sulla (@Sulla2389) June 5, 2016

@BenHowe I imagine you to be the type to get off on your wife being pounded by 4 black bulls, while she looks at you in the eye and smiles

— Anti Shill (@TheAntiShill) June 5, 2016

@BenHowe I wondered if you are an actual Kike. Now I know. You are pure filth. You must be deported to Israel, vermin.

— DeniseLaCelt (@CelticDenise) June 4, 2016