Donald Trump's dangerous moral failure on Charlottesville
Donald Trump is who we thought he was.
"I
watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it,"
Trump lectured the assembled reporters. "And you have -- you had a group
on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also
very violent, and nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now."
And,
again: "I think there's blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it,
and you don't have any doubt about it either."
And,
again: "I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story. I thought
what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But
there are two sides to (it)."
That
view is factually inaccurate. Only one side with one belief
system was involved in a speeding car being rammed into a group of
counter-protesters -- an incident that left one woman dead and more than a
dozen others injured. Only one group in Charlottesville on Saturday
bases their entire "belief" system on the inferiority of other people
because of their race or religion. Only one group on Saturday speaks
admiringly of a murderous dictator who killed millions.
Trump
knows this. He is not dumb. He is not unfamiliar with history. And the fact
that he knows it and, therefore, knows what he's doing with this faux attempt
at moral relativism makes him all the more dangerous. Because it means he
understands the power of grievance, the power of rewriting history -- or the
present -- to fit into a contorted ideology that catalyzes hate into political
power.
Take
Trump's attempt to make a slippery slope argument about the removal of a Robert
E. Lee statue in Charlottesville.
"So
this week it's Robert E. Lee," he said. "I noticed that Stonewall
Jackson's coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it
Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you all -- you really do have to ask
yourself, where does it stop?"
Equating
the first president of the United States with a Confederate general who led a
rebellion against his country is, um, not intellectually honest. (Trump knows
that.)
Know
who liked Trump's relativism on Robert E. Lee? None other than Duke, perhaps
the most high-profile white supremacist in the country. "Thank you
President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about
#Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," Duke tweeted, with a link to a clip in which
Trump made the Robert E. Lee - George Washington comparison.
When
David Duke is praising you, it might be time to re-examine what you're doing
with your life.
What
Trump has done with the campaign he ran and his unwillingness to change a
single thing as President -- as illustrated starkly in this series of comments
about Charlottesville -- is provide cover for Duke and all of his hate-filled
compadres. "The President said both sides do it! The left is just as intolerant
as we are!" they will croon.
What
Trump has done over the past four days -- and especially what he said on
Tuesday at the White House -- ensures that the hate-mongers who protested in
Charlottesville will be emboldened. They will view the ambiguity of blame from
Trump as a win, as a stamp of approval by which they can grow their efforts to
divide us and bring out the darkest parts of our humanity.
That
outcome is more than a failure of political leadership by Trump. It is a
failure of moral leadership.
It is
impossible -- given the last two years of Trump -- to conclude he is simply
fumbling his way around on issues of race, gender and ethnic heritage. The
mountain of evidence gathered suggests just the opposite: That he is purposely
saying and doing things to make murky moral questions that should be crystal
clear. And why is he doing it? For political gain.
That is
the opposite of what being president of the United States should be. Hell, it's
the opposite of what being a citizen of this country should be.
What
Trump is doing is dangerous -- for our politics and for our moral fiber. To
condone white supremacists by insisting there are two sides to every coin is to
take us back decades in our understanding of each other. It is to undo decades
worth of progress toward a freer and better country for all people.
To do
so purposely to score political points or stick it in the eye of your supposed
media enemies is, frankly, despicable.
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