The editorial board of The New York Times has torn the hide off president Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump is alone in modern presidential history in his willingness to summon demons of bigotry and intolerance in service to himself. He began his political career on a lie about President Barack Obama’s citizenship and has failed to firmly condemn the words and deeds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan leaders and other bigots who rallied behind him. A number of these people, including David Duke, the former Klan imperial wizard, and Richard Spencer, self-styled theorist of the alt-right, were part of the amen chorus of bigots in Charlottesville.
“We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,” said Mr. Duke, whose support Mr. Trump has only reluctantly disavowed in the past. “That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump.”
Mr. Trump’s fear of naming the source of Saturday’s violence sharply contrasts with his eagerness to call out Islamist terror.
All day on Sunday, Mr. Trump remained silent, as H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose jobs are to understand and combat hate-based threats, covered for him on the television news shows. Ivanka Trump, her father’s senior adviser and self-proclaimed moderating force, issued a single tweet of protest.
“There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis,” she wrote on Sunday, apparently blind to her father’s accommodation of those forces.
One aide not heard from was Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, whose nationalist theories and Breitbart dog whistles helped summon the rage on display in Charlottesville.
On Sunday, the White House issued, anonymously, another weak statement, saying that the president’s words on Saturday “of course” included “white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.”
Meanwhile a handful of congressional Republicans have condemned the hate on display in Charlottesville, and in our politics. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado said of white supremacists, “We don’t want them in our base, they shouldn’t be in a base, we shouldn’t call them part of a base.”
But Mr. Trump does, and in his desperation to rescue his failing presidency, he again clung to them.
Paul Krugman, meanwhile, used his column today to denounce Trump as a blatant white supremist.
"Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn the murderous white supremacists in Charlottesville finally confirms what has become increasingly obvious: The current president of the United States isn’t a real American."
I hope the Orange Ogre finds himself increasingly isolated, Mound. The events of Charlottesville seem to have galvanized many people out of their complacency. I hope against hope that it becomes a turning point for the 'silent majority."
ReplyDeleteAn article in the Atlantic titled alt right at a crossroads states that there will be three similar rallies next Saturday. It might be worth a few dollars betting on Trump declaring a state of national emergency on Monday and shutting down the government and suspending civil liberties.
ReplyDeleteEven with the tragedy at charlottesville , I have to say that the disscussion dangersly becoming on principal and deviated from the root problem ( economic ) , the establishment in there attembt to stay relvent are traying to buff up extremist , people forget that nazi attacke have always been there ( remember black church attack under obama ) and trump and his goons are symptom of establishment failuer not rise of extremism .
ReplyDelete.. irs possible Charlottesville is a continouos 'flashpoint'
ReplyDeleteRichard Spencer quoted as saying . '
we'll return here so many times
your heads will spin' or something to that effect.
The citizens of Charlottesville are now victims of history,
some statues & a mindless organization of idiot rascists.
Hell, they have the rapt attention & approval
of the current freakshow presidente of the US of A
My prediction is... (and I have been dead wrong, many times)
Military veterans will organize and arrive in Charlottesville
and invest the various access points with shall we say 'supervision' ?
At which point the resident golf presidente el pretendo
will see he's euchered.. and ensure National Guard Reserves
are totallty controlling the town.
In case anyone missed out.. the white supremacy glee club
were insulting citizens, waving nazi flags, torchlight shouting
marching... sieg heil ! !
Oh ! beating citizens, & pepper spraying them ad nauseum
They had many many gunmen on rooftops and at street level
with semi automatic weapons, sniperscopes..
These rabid parasites have every right to their opinion
but threatening and demeaning rascist crudeness
beating a black youth with flag poles.. is not 'opinion'
The return of Richard Spencer et al
will not be 'abided' ..
ReplyDeleteThe ball is in the alt.right court now. I saw a report this morning claiming that there'll be a wave of Confederate monuments coming down after Charlottesville. The problem is that removing hateful monuments won't take the generations-old hatred out of many in the Deep South. There's a reason these organizations are still around and, today it seems, flourishing. That racist bigotry is too deep-seated in America to make the removal of Civil War monuments to the slave states very effective.