Great question, friend! And an important one in this day and age—though not a new one! Debates over the propriety and purpose of public protest go back a long, long time, so long that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to “peaceably assemble!”

As you can imagine, we’ll find our answer in books on the First Amendment. From what I’ve read, the sentiments Trump has expressed go back a very long way in American history, though you are right, they have mutated over time. They’ve been first employed since before even the American Revolution—and if you’re talking about world history, you could probably go back even further than that, but America’s my field of expertise. Other sorts of arguments levied against protestors include appeals to religious conformity, patriotism, and the maintenance of social order. All of them have changed their outward form as social conditions have changed, but I’d argue their essences remain the same. In the 1830s, the rights of blacks to peaceably assemble was stomped down because of Southern fears of slave insurrections, in the early 20th century, that rhetoric shifted to fear of Communists and Anarchists subverting American society; that rhetoric would heat up during the Cold War and be applied to Civil Rights and Black Power protests, and with reference to blacks, would be tied in with criticisms of perceived black thuggishness (and sexual promiscuity!). While I can’t say too much on recent events due to the 20 year rule we have here, I’ll just briefly mention that in the wake of 9/11, many criticisms of American policy, including protests, were seen as un-patriotic.

I know we’re supposed to cite several sources in our answers here, but there happens to be a very exhaustive book on this subject that covers just about everything you want to know! I highly recommend picking up John D. Inazu’s Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly (Yale University Press, 2012), which is all about the right to public protest—the “freedom of assembly” clause in the First Amendment.

Debates over which forms of speech could be protected and which actually hampered “free speech” go back to the ratification of the Constitution. As Inazu notes on pages 21-30, original drafts of the First Amendment actually included “for the common good” at the end of the Free Assembly cause, meaning that some thought the people could “peaceably assemble” only for cause held to be upholding “the common good”—which was up for debate, so the deeper meaning was that public assemblies, demonstrations, or protests were not inherently protected. Thankfully (IMO) those three letters were struck away in the actual First Amendment, making its defense of free speech much more robust. Inazu goes on to provide some examples of Quakers in England being prohibited from protesting or demonstrating because they were seen to be undermining the state religion, the Church of England. We can see that the Founders, rebelling from England as they were, would have been familiar with some of the other justifications for condemning public protest you asked about—religious conformity, for one—and comparing it to today, it’s a little different, since we have no established church. But I’d argue the intent of preserving social order is the same.

Security, too, was perceived to be as important centuries ago as it is now. On pages 40-50 of Inazu’s book, he describes how Nat Turner’s 1831 slave insurrection gave the South a mighty scare. They put all sorts of restrictions on blacks (both slave and free), forbidding them the right to gather in groups, and even hold their own church services! All because blacks were “violent thugs”—though of course, that wasn’t the turn of phrase used back then. Instead, white citizens in Mississippi condemned “crowds of negroes, drinking, fiddling, dancing, singing, cursing, swearing, whooping, and yelling, to the great annoyance and scandal of all respectable and order loving persons,” and forbid them to gather. The language was more archaic, but the sentiment isn’t too far off from Trump’s.

On pages 60-80, Inazu describes how labor protests had grown in fervor during the Gilded Age (1877 onwards), but not until 1905 did labor organizations begin appealing to freedom of assembly. In that era, strikers for the IWW, or Wobblies, were described by one mayor in terms similar to the “violent thugs” rhetoric: “When members of the IWW invoked the rights of speech and assembly during the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 , Paterson mayor H. G. McBride responded that these protections extended to the striking silk workers but not to the Wobblies: “I cannot stand for seeing Paterson flooded with persons who have no interest in Paterson, who can only give us a bad name, who can despoil in a few hours a good name we have been years in building up, and I propose to continue my policy of locking these outside agitators up on sight.” (62).

I’m running out of time, so to hit on your question about the Civil Rights movement: See page 331 of Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Sexularism for criticisms of the Voting Rights March; one Alabama politician claimed blacks and whites were coming together just for “interracial sex,” a very charged as well as prurient accusation in that time. So back during the Civil Rights days, protestors were not just labeled thugs but sex deviants as well.

Hope this helps! I’ll be back in about 8 hours after I go to sleep if you have any more questions :D