Electoral battles
George Wallace knew how to handle the hecklers who routinely disrupted his events. “These are the folks,” he declared at a rally in 1968, “that people like us are sick and tired of. You’ve been getting a good lesson in what we’ve been talking about. They talk about free speech but won’t allow it to others.”
Wallace knew the protestors were priceless to him in stoking passions and drawing media attention. “They’re on our payroll,” he joked.
George Wallace had unsurpassed skills as a popular agitator, but even he would have to admire how Donald Trump parlayed a
cancelled Chicago event where supporters and protesters shoved and punched one another into wall-to-wall media coverage and an advertisement for his alleged stalwartness against the forces of anarchy.
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