President Trump and the Events in Charlottesville

1. I don’t know of any groups that come up as intellectually deficient as White Supremacists. The idea that white skin makes you superior, and therefore gives an inherent right for whites to dominate other races, goes against common sense and the word of God, which says all men were made in God’s image.

2. I do not believe that President Trump is a white supremacist. However, the so-called Alt-right, egged on by Steve Bannon’s (who probably isn’t a racist either, but saw the need to mobilize these people) Breitbart News (how sad to the memory of Andrew Breitbart—a good man) marshalled the forces of these folks to help get Trump elected. That is a fact—just go read the comments section of Breitbart.com before the election. It worked.

3. In an interview with then candidate Trump, I remember that he would not condemn the racist David Duke, and then flat out lied, saying, he did not know who David Duke was. Why? Because sadly, he felt he needed these people to get elected. The same David Duke said to a reporter (during the rally) that he was there to support Donald Trump’s agenda to take America back—I guess from African Americans, Latinos and Jews. Now, just because he invokes Trump’s name, it doesn’t make Trump a racist, but it does demand radical and regular condemnation from President Trump.

4. The only reason Steve Bannon has a job in the White House is to appease these people. Trump doesn’t want to alienate them. He needs them in 2020. This is also why Trump gave a placid condemnation, not even mentioning the white supremacy groups, this weekend, and then only under pressure finally called them out by name. This is unacceptable.

5. However, amongst the progressives, there are too few condemnations of the violent radical left—for the same reason. Hillary, Bernie, Chuck and Elizabeth will need the new Antifa and BLM (Not saying all BLM members are violent, but certainly many) to get elected. It seems there is a lack of courage on both the left and the right to condemn violence from potential voters. The only difference is that virtually every other republican came out and swiftly condemned the KKK and neo-Nazism—even the infamous Anthony Scaramucci chided the president for his toothless statement! I have not seen one democrat condemn the violent Antifa and when they have condemned the violence of BLM, they quickly walk it back because of angry response.

6. In the video I saw of the fighting in Charlottesville, I didn’t see armed White Supremacists against peaceful protestors (though I am sure there were many local peaceful protestors—and if I was in my home state of Virginia, I may have been one of them). But I saw two armed groups ready to fight. In the short clips on the news, I could not figure out at first who were the white supremacists and who were the protestors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9AOMXuJSd4

7. The Alt-Right is a term that racist Richard Spencer coined in 2010 to refer to White Nationalism. It has nothing to do with conservatism. Conservatives believe in small and government, free enterprise, traditional family values, low taxes and limited government regulation. The Alt-Right is focused on white nationalism, nativism (which is funny because they all came from Europe), anti-Semitism, anti-feminism, anti-homosexual and anti-immigration. Conservatives are pro-legal The Alt-Right are not conservatives, but racists.

8. The rise in violence of both the white nationalists and the radical left is troubling. Martin Luther King was arguably the most effective social rights leader in history and he would not resort to violence. It is clear that both the white supremacists and the protesters were not local to Charlottesville. The killer of Heather Heyer was from Ohio and the BLM New York signs there.

9. We have a media that is so obsessed with a story that they cannot ignore the racists. After the tragic death of Heather Heyer at the hands of a Hitler-living domestic terrorist, White Power leader Jason Kessler announced a press conference in Charlottesville and the press flocked to give him a stage. Why not just ignore him? Imagine if no one showed up? During the actual march, photographers jumped in front to get pictures of the neo-Nazis so the world could see. Why? Why are you giving the most evil in our culture a stage—and for free!? (I know this is wishful thinking on my part.)

10. As a normal human being, as I watched some of these bozos making Nazi signs and shouting racist slogans and even carrying Nazi flags, I would have liked to have been there with a two by four. It would taken tremendous self-control not to become violent as someone attacks the essence of who you are, calling you less of a human because you are black or Jewish or Latino. While violence is definitively not the answer, the urge to resort to it is understandable.

11. President Trump needs to condemn these people in the strongest terms, fire Bannon (who gave them a voice) and distance himself from them completely and forever. There is no question that the media has been unfair to Trump, but he is equally responsible for constantly leaving room for ambiguity—like with his statement this weekend.