My personal reflections on the Trump rally.

It's getting seriously weird. There were similar goings-on in the past in American political meetings or union meetings where dissenters got beaten up, so this is not solely reminiscent of National Socialist brownshirts. And those of us long in the tooth can remember the Democratic convention at Chicago when Daly's cops beat up protesters. Or Kent State when bystanders got shot by nervous National Guardsmen.

I'm not gonna call Trump an overdressed Adolf, but there are echoes of most unpleasant events.

Back before I felt the Bern, I got mad when Bernie let himself be pushed off the stage at his rally by a couple of Black Lives Matter women who seized and did not relinquish the microphone. I considered Bernie weak to let that happen. But what he did -- depart and go over to another and bigger rally -- was smarter than raising a fuss or telling them he was being arrested in a civil rights demonstration before they were even a gleam in their parents' eyes.

Unless a speaker is clever and daring enough to rap with protesters and come off looking good, the best policy is to avoid the appearance of disorder, and sometimes -- sometimes -- you look better beating a retreat.

We'll find out in the next primaries how this plays with voters. Never understood the appeal of Donnie Trump except that he spent several years slumming in the mires of conservatism and learned what buttons to push.

I'm not yet ready to cast Trump as the boogeyman. Cruz and the proponents of a religious state, yeah, they make my skin crawl. When Cruz becomes the voice of reason in a party it's time to laager up and check the powder. I fear that Trumpees will awake from this drugged dream and glam onto Cruz.