Tag Archives: Charlottesville riot

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National divide might take generations to mend

Oh, how I hate the division that is threatening our national fabric. Really, I believe we are heading for fracturing that might take generations to heal.

Donald Trump got elected president in 2016 promising, among other things, to heal the wounds that divided us during that brutal campaign. How has he done? Not well … not well at all!

Indeed, the president has done next to nothing to even attempt to heal those wounds. The Charlottesville, Va., riot in2017 provides an example of what I mean. Klansmen and Nazis gathered in Charlottesville to protest the taking down of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee; counter protesters showed up, one of the counter protesters got run down and killed by one of the Nazis. Trump then said there were “fine people … on both sides!” Oh, no. There weren’t fine folks on both sides, Mr. President.

It has been like during Trump’s term as president.

We are degenerating into a society with intense anger fueled in large part by those who adhere to the president’s scorched-Earth policy regarding his foes.

To be fair, I don’t mean to toss all the blame solely at the president’s feet. There has been a good bit invective hurled at him from the other side. Perhaps the most egregious utterance came from a newly elected Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib, who declared at a rally that “we’re going to impeach the motherfu****!”

I don’t remember, though, who started this political pi**ing match. At this point, it doesn’t matter to me.

What matters is that we’re entering a presidential election season shrouded under the clouds of probable impeachment over presidential solicitation of foreign government help in his re-election fight. Donald Trump is going to launch every rhetorical missile in his formidable arsenal at his foes, who are likely to return fire with equal gusto.

I am just a spectator and a chump blogger with plenty to say about all that is unfolding in front of us. I don’t like what I am seeing and hearing.

I want it to end. I’ll get to my proposed solution right here: It will end only when Donald Trump is no longer president of the United States. He needs to be shown the door.

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Trump vs. Biden: Battle of ‘Both Sides’

Joe Biden has fired a salvo at Donald Trump and Trump has responded by doubling down on arguably his most disgraceful moment as president of the United States.

The former vice president entered the 2020 presidential contest Thursday with a video in which he says the president’s comment on the Charlottesville, Va., riot demonstrates the depths he has taken the country. Trump said in 2017 that there were “fine people on both sides” of the riot; one of those “sides” featured KKK members and Nazis. Biden said the president attached “moral equivalence” between those who spread hate and those who fight them.

Well, Trump responded today by taking Biden’s bait. He said his “both sides” comment was the “perfect response.” Trump said he was referring to those who were protesting the takedown of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who he described as a “great general.”

I’m trying to recall any mention of Gen. Lee in the moment when Trump made that “both sides” remark. I can’t discern any of it. He might have intended to make that reference — except that he didn’t.

Instead, he spoke about the alleged violent intent of those who counter-protested the hate groups’ march against the statue removal.

I believe VP Biden has punched Trump squarely in the biggest hot button he could find.

How do I know that? I don’t, exactly. However, the president’s response to the Charlottesville criticism illustrates how easily he can be rattled into making patently ridiculous assertions.

I must wonder: Will it matter that Donald Trump is a blundering buffoon who cannot be trusted to tell us the truth?

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Study shows hate crime spike

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How are we supposed to interpret this study?

Get a load of this: A University of North Texas analysis has disclosed that hate crimes increased 226 percent in those counties where Donald Trump staged political rallies during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Huh? But . . . wait! Don’t the Trump allies say there’s no relationship between the president and the reported resurgence of white supremacist hate groups?

Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that.

The study was done by Ayal Feinberg, a political science doctoral student at UNT, along with Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, two UNT political science professors.

They contend that the study reveals that the spike occurred in the months immediately after Trump held those rallies while he was campaigning for president of the United States.

According to The Hill newspaper: “They said their research sought to explain how some of Trump’s rhetoric ‘may encourage hate crimes.'”

How do you dismiss the findings, that such hate crimes spiked 226 percent in those counties were Trump fired ’em up with his red-hot rhetoric?

It’s difficult to separate the findings from the president’s speech.

The Hill’s story explains how the researchers collected their data. Read it here.

I have resisted suggesting that Trump’s rhetoric was directly responsible for horrific acts, such as — for example — the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre of 50 people at two mosques the other day. The white supremacist/moron arrested, though, reportedly had been inspired by something Trump had said.

And, yes, the president did equate neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 by referring to “very fine people on both sides” participating in that deadly riot.

This is the individual who serves as president of the Land of Opportunity.

Oh . . . my.

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Virginia story becomes a national story

Under normal circumstances, a story about a statewide politician getting caught posing — allegedly — in a hideously racist picture would matter only to the voters of that state.

Except these aren’t “normal” times. Social media have this way of elevating every ostensibly local issue into something far larger.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has made a dramatic U-turn in light of a growing controversy in his home state.

A picture surfaced in Northam’s medical school yearbook — on a page with his name on it! — that shows two men, one in black face and the other in a Ku Klux Klan get-up. Northam at first admitted he was one of the young men in the picture. Then he denied it. Calls for his resignation have bombarded his office. He had a press conference today and said he wouldn’t quit.

Why is this a national story? Because (a) it happened in Virginia, which is a “swing state” in presidential elections, (b) we watched a race riot erupt in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and (c) Americans always are interested in race-related issues.

Northam needs to quit. He won’t, for now.

That this happened while he was in medical school makes this issue a disqualifier for Gov. Northam. He wasn’t some dumba** eighth-grader doing something typically stupid, as eighth-grade boys are prone to do. The 1984 yearbook pegs Northam at 25 years of age; moreover, he was a medical school student, a grown man.

He said today he didn’t see the picture until Friday, which to my ears stretches credulity. Northam said he never bought a copy of the yearbook. Yet he wants us to believe that for 35 years no one — not a classmate, friend or family member — ever brought it to his attention?

This story isn’t going to evaporate any time soon, it appears to me. Many of us still have Charlottesville so fresh in our minds. The KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists clashed with counter protesters; one young woman was killed in the melee.

Now comes this latest matter involving the state’s governor, for criminy sakes!

It isn’t just a Virginia story. The nation has a stake in it, too.

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Now, what about a POTUS who said some nasty things?

Virginia Republicans need to tread carefully.

The state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, has apologized for appearing in a racist photograph showing two men — one in blackface and the other in a KKK-style costume. The Virginia GOP has called for his immediate resignation.

I agree that Northam should resign.

However . . .

Just a word of advice to the state Republican Party is in order. The nation’s Top Republican, Donald Trump, said in 2017 that there were “good people” who belonged to white supremacist groups, Nazis and Klansmen who protested the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va.

Will they hold the president to account for that hideous assertion?

Ever?

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King gets GOP reprimand; why not the same for POTUS?

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U.S. Rep. Steve King has gotten slapped down hard by his fellow congressional Republicans, who have voted to strip him of all his committee assignments, essentially rendering the Iowa lawmaker a useless member of Congress.

That’s a good thing, yes? Yes, of course it is! King said he couldn’t understand why the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” have become offensive to Americans.

The House GOP caucus did the right thing.

But . . . wait a second! Another Republican politician has equated white supremacists and neo-Nazis with groups that demonstrated against them in Charlottesville, Va.; he said he didn’t anything about a widely known former Klan leader who had endorsed him for public office; he has continually refused to condemn in suitably stark language the actions and rhetoric that come from these groups.

The GOP congressional caucus has remained stone-cold silent about Donald John Trump!

It forces many Trump critics to question why the House Republican caucus that showed good sense in slapping down one of its members is so reluctant to do the same thing to the nation’s top Republican.

It could be argued that what the president said about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville was worse than what King told The New York Times. Remember how Trump declared there was blame to go around for the violence “on both sides” and how there were “fine people on both sides” of the riot that left a counter-protester dead after one of the neo-Nazis ran over her with his motor vehicle?

Trump has derided the intelligence of some of his African-American critics. He referred to African nations as “sh**hole countries” and said we should encourage more immigration from places such as Norway.

The GOP congressional caucus has been silent. How come?

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Jewish leaders make remarkable demand of POTUS

It appears that any presidential outreach to the stricken Jewish community in Pittsburgh, Pa., is going to carry some provisions that I hope the president will honor.

Jewish leaders have told Donald Trump that he isn’t welcome in their city until he renounces white supremacists specifically and categorically. The demand came in the form of a letter written by members of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.

Members have demanded also that the president stop targeting minorities, such as those who are fleeing repression in Central America and have formed the so-called “caravan” en route north.

According to The Hill: “The Torah teaches that every human being is made … in the image of God. This means all of us,” the leaders wrote. “In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God.”

Pittsburgh is mourning the deaths of 11 congregants of Tree of Life synagogue. A man known for his anti-Semitic views is under arrest for the slaughter of worshipers on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat, or sabbath.

Donald Trump should go to the city. He should extend his hand. He should lend his full support. He already has condemned the massacre as an “assault on humanity.”

The Jewish leaders want more. They are demanding the president say something vastly different from what he declared in 2017 after the Charlottesville, Va., riot that left a young woman dead. He tossed blame at “both sides,” the Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists, along with those who protested against them. He then declared there were “very fine people … on both sides.”

He needs to retract that hideous attempt at moral equivalence.

That’s what the Pittsburgh Jewish leaders are demanding.

Are you listening, Mr. President?

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White supremacists get outshouted in D.C.

If you can’t stand what someone has to say, well, then just outshout ’em.

How’s that for a remedy? It showed itself this weekend in Washington, D.C., where white supremacists and other goons wanted to commemorate the Charlottesville, Va., riot a year ago that resulted in the death of a counter protester.

Given that the president of the United States would offer only sterile, tepid remarks condemning “all types of racism,” those opposed to the haters decided to show up in massive numbers. They outshouted the haters.

Hey, I believe in the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and expression. It was on full display as the counter protesters were heard over the white supremacists.

It reminds me of an event I witnessed in 2006 in Amarillo. The Ku Klux Klan wanted to launch a protest. Just as the KKK was getting ready to speak its peace, some counter protesters marched onto the City Hall parking lot banging cymbals, blowing on horns, shouting at the top of their lungs.

Leading the “charge” was the late Stanley Marsh 3, Amarillo’s most notable “eccentric.”

Ah, yes, the First Amendment. Ain’t it just grand?

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Trump condemns ‘all types of racism’?

Donald John “Equivocator in Chief” Trump this morning issued a statement that condemned racism.

Not only that, the president chose to condemn “all types of racism.” I have been stewing over that qualifier for a good bit of the day and I have decided that Trump chose that language in his tweet for the same reason he chooses to suggest that nations other than Russia are attacking our electoral system.

Do you remember when he said in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., riot how there was blame to go around to “all sides”? Do you also recall him saying after the riot between white supremacists and those who oppose them that there were “very fine people … on both sides”?

You see, the president who portrays himself as the toughest guy on the block cannot deal forthrightly with those we all know are evil. He chooses to spread the blame around and, thus, lessen the impact of his remarks.

After that hideous press conference in Helsinki in June when he had the chance to confront Vladimir Putin over the Russian attack on our 2016 election, he had to issue a “clarification” of what he said. He stated initially that he didn’t know why Russia “would” interfere. Then the next day he changed the word “would” to “wouldn’t,” but then waffled by suggesting that other nations were doing it, too.

Now he condemns “all types of racism” on this weekend where the nation will commemorate the tragic riot that exploded in Charlottesville one year ago.

I’ll be candid. The only form of racism worthy of condemnation in this context is the type of the hatred against African Americans and other ethnic and religious minorities by groups such as the KKK, the neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists. This discussion doesn’t include other “types of racism.”

So, when the president waters down his condemnation first by offering it in a sterile Twitter message and then adding “all types of racism” suggests to me that he doesn’t really condemn the kind of racism that is under discussion.

We are referring, Mr. President, only to Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Donald Trump

POTUS condemns ‘all types of racism’

The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

There it is. Right there is Donald J. Trump’s statement condemning racism in the United States.

OK. What do we make of this? Is the statement going to be the president’s final word on the subject? It came, of course, via Twitter. He flashed it out there from his vacation home in New Jersey.

I so want to believe this is enough. I want to feel assured that Donald Trump won’t ever utter another insensitive statement, such as ridiculing foes who happen to be African-American by denigrating their intelligence. To black Americans, that represents the “mother of all dog whistles,” given that racists too often question the intelligence of African-Americans.

There, of course, is so much more the president can say about racism. He can fill in many blanks, telling us how we should deal with hate groups, those who commit hate crimes, those who afflict victims solely because of their race.

Moreover, he could say these things on live television. He could speak to us from the Oval Office. He could look us in the eye, enabling us to judge the sincerity by watching how he spells out he intends to “condemn all types of racism.”

This weekend we’re going to commemorate the year since the Charlottesville, Va., riot that killed a young counter protester. Klansmen, Nazis and other white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

He spoke of “very fine people … on both sides” of that tragic disturbance.

Just maybe the president could find it within himself to acknowledge that he made a grievous error by lifting the hate groups to the same moral standing of those who protested against them.

That would tell me a great deal more about his commitment to battling racism than a sterile tweet.