US President Donald Trump couldn’t just leave the events in Charlottesville, Virginia alone. He already screwed up his response to it once, as it was happening, but apparently he just had to return to the scene of the crime and go and do it again. It was a couple of months ago when white supremacists turned out to protest the call to tear down a statue of a Confederate general.
The white supremacists – the guys who endorsed Trump during his Presidential campaign – wanted to preserve their history, even if that history was impeccably racist and pro-slavery.
However, some counter-protestors arrived on the scene, as they should, to speak out against the bigotry and hatefulness and racism of the white nationalists. And then one of the white nationalists drove his car through a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one and injuring a few others.
‘On many sides’
Trump caused controversy when his response to this was to condemn violence “on many sides.” A lot of people took this as being Trump supporting the alt-right movement and their friendly neighbourhood murderer – that’s certainly what it seems like, anyway. He used that phrase, “on many sides,” twice in succession to really get the point across that he thinks white nationalism is awesome and he’s got their back.
Charlottesville was a terrible tragedy that had been silenced by the recent onslaught of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and other surrounding states and Hurricane Irma in the Florida Keys, but Trump has decided to reopen those old wounds and reignite the controversy that surrounded his comments – by pretty much repeating them.
Trump’s newest comments seem to more clearly equate the neo-Nazis with the counter-protestors than his previous “on many sides” statement.
This time, he’s met with Tim Scott, the only black Republican with a seat in the US Senate. Scott’s intention with the meeting was to make sure that the President understood the distinction between white supremacists and the people opposing them – because to a black man with some degree of intelligence, those aren’t the same thing.
Trump was asked about this conversation on Air Force One
On a return flight from Florida yesterday aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked about the conversation between himself and Senator Scott, which took place on Wednesday. He started by saying that it was “a great talk,” although he doesn’t seem to have taken much of value from it, because he went on to talk unfavourably about Antifa, the anti-fascist movement that is using violence to attack fascism.
Trump added that “especially in light of the advent of Antifa,” violence in the name of extreme political beliefs should be condemned. President Donald Trump doesn’t like a group that targets fascism. Interesting. He said that “essentially” what he told Senator Scott was to “look at what’s going on there” and see that there are “some pretty bad dudes on the other side also.”
Apparently Trump also believes that, thanks to Antifa, “a lot of people” are now saying and writing, “Gee, Trump might have a point,” although whether or not anyone in the entire world besides him has ever written or said that remains to be seen.
He said that he told Senator Scott that he has “some very bad people on the other side also, which is true.” Scott and Trump belong to the same political party, though, so all that Trump could mean by “the other side” that he’s on is the side of black people compared to Trump’s side of white/orange people. It’s just astounding what this guy comes out with sometimes. Politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties in US politics have continued to condemn Trump’s statements about these matters.
