Why does a hat trigger so much hate and bigotry?

It seems like wearing a MAGA hat in public is becoming as dangerous as wearing Yankee gear to Fenway Park. But why does it trigger such hate, violence, and bigotry?

Police arrested Ryan M. Salvagno, 19, of Somerset, N.J., on February 27. Two days earlier, authorities say, he hounded an unidentified 81-year-old man who wore a MAGA hat. Salvagno allegedly confronted the senior outside a Shop Rite in Franklin Township. Prosecutors say that Salvagno argued with the man about the hat, grabbed it, shoved the octogenarian to the ground (causing minor injuries), and toppled his grocery cart. Salvagno faces assault and harassment charges.

On February 25, Kenneth Dewayne Jones, 18, knocked a MAGA hat off of a 17-year-old classmate at Santa Fe High School in Edmond, Okla. “Are you proud of what you are wearing?” Jones asked his male victim. Jones forcibly removed the teen’s hat and yanked away his pro-Trump banner. Jones was cited for municipal assault and battery, requiring a $560 fine.

Zachary Greenberg, 28, was arrested for sucker-punching Hayden Williams, 26, at U.C. Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement. Williams, a Leadership Institute employee, volunteered to help Turning Point USA register conservative students.

On February 19, Williams manned a recruitment table bearing two signs: “Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims” and “This is MAGA country.”Cellphone videos show Greenberg, a software engineer, knocking over the table and signs. Greenberg hits Williams once, screams obscenities at him, and then cold-cocks him in the face. His swollen, black eye darkened subsequent TV interviews. Six days after Williams’s beating, he told Fox Business Network anchor Stuart Varney, “I still have ringing in my ears and other symptoms of a concussion.”

Another Day in Trump’s America…. pic.twitter.com/YLjCltk23I

— Paul Martinez (@MartinezGustav0) March 21, 2019

University cops arrested Greenberg on March 1. He is accused of felonious assault, bodily injury, and criminal threats, plus misdemeanor vandalism.
“This is the very epitome of fascism,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, Williams’s attorney. “The use of violence to silence your opponents and making people afraid of expressing their views.”

February 16: Terry Pierce and his wife were shopping at a Sam’s Club in Bowling Green, Ky., when they encountered James Phillips, 57, of Cottontown, Tenn. He greeted their MAGA hats with his middle finger. Pierce, 52, told WBKO-TV that, after he returned the salutation, Phillips “pulled a .40 caliber out and stuck it in my face, backed up, and said, ‘It’s a good day for you to die.’” Police say Phillips’ Glock had one chambered bullet, and he had two ammunition clips in his pocket. He was jailed and faces wanton endangerment charges.“I have as much right to wear that hat and support my country and my president as he has not to,” Pierce said. He told Newsweek that this episode inspired some of his Democratic friends to re-register as Republicans because they did not want to “identify with a party that has so much hate.”

February 15: Rosiane Santos, 41, a Brazilian illegal alien, approached Bryton Turner, 23, as he sampled Casa Vallarta’s Mexican cuisine in Falmouth, Mass. Turner says Santos tried to shove his head into his food. Cellphones captured Santos knocking off Turner’s MAGA hat. According to Police Officer Newton Cardoso, Santos then “began to verbally assault him.” She called him a “motherf***er” for backing President Trump and said he should be barred from a Mexican eatery while wearing a MAGA hat. As Cardoso and three officers arrested Santos, Cardoso says she “hit him [Turner] over the head again in front of us.”“It’s just a hat,” Turner told WBZ-TV. “I don’t really understand why people can’t just express themselves anymore. Everybody has to get mad.”
Falmouth police charged Santos with assault and disorderly conduct. ICE spokesman John Mohan later said, “Deportation officers with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested Rosiane Santos, an unlawfully present citizen of Brazil.” She was caught and released. Deportation proceedings await.

February 11: Gunnar Johnson, 14, and other pupils who supported the March of Dimes earned permission to wear hats at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Palm City, Fla. So Johnson donned his MAGA cap, “to show my pride in Trump America.”“Boy, if you don’t take that hat off,” school-bus aide Delores Matheny, 64, yelled at Johnson en route to campus. “Take it off.” Matheny “yanked my hat off,” Johnson said. “It was crazy.”
Prosecutors decided Thursday not to press charges against Matheny. According to assistant state attorney Nita Denton, “while the bus aide’s behavior is inappropriate and unprofessional, it doesn’t rise to the criminal level.”

November 3, 2018: Jonathan Sparks, 34, walked through Tucson, Ariz., on Saturday before the midterm election. He wore his MAGA hat and carried a sign: “Vote Jobs Not Mobs — Vote Republican.” Someone suddenly grabbed Sparks’s hat and the back of his head.“The assailant had jumped onto my ankle from behind and so I, not knowing my ankle was broken into four pieces, I turned around to grab and take the hat back,” Sparks told KVOA. “Then, I heard the words ‘Hitler,’ ‘Nazi,’ and ‘Trump.’ He was shouting things like that,” Sparks added. “He came over the top of me and over and over again, he hit me.” Sparks required surgery.
“I’m struggling with range of motion in my ankle,” Sparks told iHeartRadio’s Garrett Lewis. Sparks has undergone physical therapy. “I’m off my cane,” he said. “I’m really happy about that.”

Police charged Daniel Zaroes Brito, 42, with aggravated assault and robbery, for stealing Sparks’s MAGA hat. Brito is a former legislative aide to U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.). April 9 is Brito’s next court date.
August 27, 2018: Jo-Ann Butler, 17, was arrested after she snatched a MAGA hat off the head of an unidentified fellow student at Union Mine High School in El Dorado, Calif. “That’s a racist and hateful symbol,” Butler said.She received a week’s suspension and faces two counts of battery: One involving her classmate and the other against her teacher who, police say, she slapped as she was arrested.

July 4, 2018: Hunter Richard, 16, and a few friends were minding their own business at a San Antonio Whataburger on America’s 242nd birthday. Richard says that Kino Jimenez, 30, then pulled the teen’s MAGA hat so hard that some of his hair got yanked out. Jimenez then yelled profanities at Richard and said the hat would “go great” in his fireplace. He threw a soft drink in Richard’s face and swiped his hat.Police arrested Jimenez and charged him with theft.

So it goes.