There Was Never Doubt Over What Trump Thought of Charlottesville - Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/08/trump_s_obscene_charlottesville_comments_sound_familiar.html

The president’s obscene Tuesday remarks are poison from the same well that equates white supremacy and liberal identity politics.

By Jamelle Bouie

It was obvious that Donald Trump had been forced into making a second statement on Monday regarding Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville. The New York Times, among others, reported that Trump was pressured to change course from his initial claim that “many sides” brought hatred to Charlottesville—phrasing that absolved the white supremacist protesters of their alleged role in the violence that culminated in the killing of Heather Heyer. According to the Times, those comments “spurred several of his top advisers, including his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, to press the president to issue a more forceful rebuke.”


After Trump’s Tuesday press conference, it’s clear that reporting was unnecessary. Trump couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let sleeping dogs lie. The press conference was pegged ostensibly to infrastructure. What we saw instead was a defense, from the president of the United States, of the Nazis and white supremacists who terrorized an American city with violence and mayhem.

The unspooling of the president’s true thoughts began after a reporter asked Trump about his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon. Not for the first time, Trump called Bannon, who had made Breitbart a home for the alt-right, a “good person” and “not a racist.” He was then asked if he thought the alt-right was responsible for the events in Charlottesville. It’s here that Trump took a turn toward the unthinkable. “What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?” he asked, referring to the counter-demonstrators.

Comparing Robert E. Lee to George Washington reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues.
It’s clear from all accounts of the violence in Virginia that the “Unite the Right” demonstrators came heavily armed and prepared for conflict, chanting racist slogans and antagonizing counterprotesters. For Trump, however, the opposite was true. It was counterprotesters who came charging with “clubs,” attacking the white supremacists and neo-Nazis. And indeed, said Trump, not all of the rally attendants were “bad people.” “You also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” said the president. “You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.” He continued: “You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest.” Trump even characterized Friday night’s protest as “quiet,” despite visual evidence that those torch-bearing demonstrators surrounded counterprotesters (many of them students), and attacked them.

snip - long, worthwhile - read the rest at the link above

last paragraph

There’s no doubt that Trump’s statements will provoke withering condemnation from his fellow Republicans. It’s already started. But at this stage it rings false. Donald Trump ran a campaign of racial demagoguery where he winked at Klansmen and brought white nationalists onto his team. Republicans might sound shocked, but nothing since Saturday—not his “many sides” condemnation, not his silence in the face of criticism, not his grudging correction and then angry repudiation of that same correction—should shock them. This is who he is. And words of anger or disappointment are no longer enough. If Republicans don’t break ties with the president, they are allies to a man who defends white supremacists and condemns those who stand against them.