The president’s reluctance to call out by name the benighted instigators of yesterday’s protests and violence in Charlottesville — the white supremacist, neo-Nazi organizers who have attempted to re-brand themselves as a cuddly “alt-right” — may be the most important single fact to emerge from these awful events. As Talking Points Memo is noting, politicians, commentators, and the public will wait in vain for Trump to truly denounce these forces — because the truth of the matter is that the president wants their support, and supports them in turn. This degree of malignant politics on the part of the president is hard for our media and political system to digest: but the faster we all digest it, the better. Facing head-on the poison that Trump has fed into our politics and society is a basic requirement for building up sufficient popular resistance and the political will to nullify his ability to do further harm.
The other overriding observation to make of this weekend's events is that a rancid, violent far-right is feeling emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, and is creeping out of the darkness to test its strength. It’s important for displays like the one in Charlottesville to be met with overwhelming counterprotests, with sheer numbers to repudiate their hateful message and deter the possibility of violence by these fools. On a more specific note, it’s also crucial to take a close look at the behavior of the police during the Charlottesville violence. Many are pointing out the contrast between peaceful Ferguson protestors having been met with the full force of armored vehicles and police in tactical gear, whereas white protestors who were armed and, in some cases, apparently impersonating National Guard members appear to have received quite different treatment. This is not to say that a militarized police response would have been the appropriate way to handle things, but to learn from the ways that subtler forms of racial thinking might inform the government’s response to certain types of protest.
As I wrote yesterday, the right-wing protestors have also done a great job all on their lonesome of displaying in irrefutable fashion the lines of commonality between white supremacism, anti-semitism, worship of the Confederacy, and Nazism — lines that they in fact appear to cultivate and embrace. Their very ideas, when viewed in the clear light of day, are self-defeating. What sort of anti-American ass would think the Nazis are cool? I am still barely able to comprehend the deep stupidity and hate behind these people, if I am even able to comprehend it at all.
A decent number of Republican politicians, including some pleasant surprises like Ted Cruz and Orrin Hatch, have criticized the president’s uncharacteristic display of being tongue-tied when it comes to naming the white-wing extremists behind the Charlottesville violence. But we need to remember how very low the bar has been set here. Opposing Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists isn’t a controversial position, but in truth within the compass of the most basic definition of American patriotism. This isn’t a hard call. And as Ed Kilgore reminds us, it is a long tradition in American politics for racist politicians to paint themselves as moderates by being able to point to the pointy-cloaked, obvious extremists like KKK members. In this light, the following from a post by Dan Rather today seems particularly spot-on:
“We are once again peering into an abyss, and I am heartened by the response from across the political spectrum. But we cannot merely cleave the most grotesque incarnations of this national malignancy. We must recognize that the seeds for yesterday's carnage can be found in attacking voting rights, demonizing immigrants, the coded words of anti-Semitism, and all the other more subtle forms of discrimination and false victimhood. They are just as dangerous as what was on display in Charlottesville, perhaps more so because they are allowed in ‘polite company’ — with a knowing wink and a blow of the proverbial dog whistle.”
It has always been a good time to push back on the issues Rather notes, but today, and in the weeks and months to come, they’re more important than ever. This also feels like as good a time as any to demand Trump fire advisors associated with white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, most notably Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and that freaky Sebastian Gorka dude.
