Trump Backtracks And Blames Both Sides, Including Alt-Left, For Charlottesville Violence

You are more likely to be attacked by Donald Trump if you say his inauguration crowd was not the largest ever than if you are a homicidal neo-Nazi who drove a car into a crowd. It should have been a no-brainer to come out speak out against white supremacist groups such as neo-Nazis and the KKK after the events in Charlottesville last weekend. He remains unwilling to stand up to his base.

After receiving considerable criticism, Trump finally did read a prepared statement which appeared to be more an attempt at damage control than a sign of any sincere convictions on his part.

It is rare for Trump to back track when he is wrong, and even this did not last long. He refused to repeat the condemnation of white supremacists when asked by reporters later in the day. By today he has completely returned to his original position of blaming both sides. The New York Time reports:

In a long, combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president repeatedly rejected a torrent of bipartisan criticism for waiting several days before naming the right-wing groups and placing blame on “many sides” for the violence on Saturday that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd.

He said that “before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”

And he criticized “alt-left” groups that he claimed were “very, very violent” when they sought to confront the nationalist and Nazi groups that had gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park. He said there is “blame on both sides.”

“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Mr. Trump said. “This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” he said, noting that the first American president had owned slaves.

Donald Trump has hardly shown any desire to wait for the facts in the past, such as when he would rush to blame Muslims for terrorist attacks. When we are dealing with neo-Nazi and white supremacists groups there are not two sides to blame. There is no equivalency between these white supremacists groups and those who came out to stand up to them. There is also only one side which committed murder in Charlottesville.

Mehdi Hasan had the simple explanation for Trump’s behavior at The Intercept in a post entitled, Donald Trump Has Been a Racist All His Life — And He Isn’t Going to Change After Charlottesville:

So can we stop pretending that Trump isn’t Trump? That the presidency has changed him, or will change him? It hasn’t and it won’t. There will be no reset; no reboot; no pivot. This president may now be going through the motions of (belatedly) denouncing racism, with his scripted statements and vacuous tweets. But here’s the thing: why would you expect a lifelong racist to want to condemn or crack down on other racists? Why assume a person whose entire life and career has been defined by racially motivated prejudice and racial discrimination, by hostility toward immigrants, foreigners, and minorities, would suddenly be concerned by the rise of prejudice and discrimination on his watch? It is pure fantasy for politicians and pundits to suppose that Trump will ever think or behave as anything other than the bigot he has always been — and, in more recent years, as an apologist for other bigots, too.

Even a Fox host called Trumps press conference, “one of the biggest messes I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe it happened.”

Trump also showed no hesitancy in attacking the press, retweeting a cartoon of a Trump Train killing a CNN reporter, although he did later delete the tweet. Promoting such violence is as bad a reaction as his refusal to consistently condemn white supremacists.

Related Post:

Donald Trump Fails The Country In Refusing To Stand Up To White Supremacists


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