Charlottesville Response - Or why Electoral Vote Winner Donny's "Condemnation" Wasn't Worth the Paper It Was Printed On

Like most people with any sense I was horrified and nauseated by the events that went down over the weekend by the so-called "alt right" ("white supremacists" or "white nationalists" is a more appropriate term for them - or maybe "alt reich") at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, VA.  Between the angry march the night before of ignorant asshats (many in a uniform seemingly similar to what electoral vote winner Donny wears to play golf or tenni. i.e.: a whit epolo shirt, khaki pants, and the infamous red cap) marching with tiki torches to yesterday's rally gone over the edge where the shit these arguments for why abortion should be encouraged tried to provoke inevitably went down. 

After nearly a day of silence electoral vote winner Donny Trump issued one of the most milquetoast statements on the day's events ever made by an elected official.  While a surface level hearing made it sound like a condemnation of hate and bigotry, it really wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.  Here's why.

Let's start with the obvious.  In the statement electoral vote winner Donny said he condemned in the "strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.."  Yes, you read that correctly, he actually said the violence came "from many sides" and didn't even mention white supremacists or Nazis.  Like a tweet he made a couple hours earlier where he urged Americans to "come together as one," he seemed to ignore the root causes of the situation while trying to push a false equivalency narrative.  While it appeared he said the words that vaguely echoed the statement he was supposed to say it seemed more out of obligation (like someone being forced to apologize for a wrong at a workplace out of fear of getting fired for example) than anything close to a sincere reflection or acknowledgement of national grief over this.

I know some supporters of Donny might want to say that "he's the president" and that he has to craft things in a way to reflect all people not just his base - thus he can't get into specifics.  However, as Shaun King points out Donny Trump is "specific when he feels like it."  From his response (as a presidential candidate) to the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL in June 2016 (in which he claimed to be "right on radical Islamic terrorism" [Islamic is capitalized in his tweet]. to his continuing to refer to his former opponent as "Crooked Hillary," there are numerous moments when our now electoral vote winner is willing to be specific in who he targets.  In fact, many of his supporters during the Presidential campaign claimed they supported him because he "told it like it is.."  Because of this his call for unity without specifics can't be taken seriously alone.  However, if you look deeper the reason Donny and company didn't call out white supremacists is more telling.

Keeping with his "condemnation" itself, a look at how it was taken by its intended targets.  A strong statement of condemnation would've made the point clear and would've garnered an angry response from the "white nationalists."  Instead, many of them supported a statement the mainstream media tried to paint as electoral vote winner Donny condemning them.  Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo Nazi web site Daily Stormer called Trump's respone "good"and mentioned that Trump "when asked to condemn walked out the room.  Really really good, God bless  him."  Infamous white nationalist figure Richard Spencer took Donny's "violence on many sides" line even further when he asked in a tweet if Trump "just denounced antifa? (anti fascist activists)" While there was one notable exception to this in David Duke's tweeting his disapproval of Trump's statement claiming that said statement attacked them and that Donny should remember "it was white americans put you in the presidency" the fact that two high profile white supremacists asshats actually voiced some form of approval on a statement that was allegedly supposed to condemn them is an obvious reflection on Donny's base and a hint of where his loyalties may lie.

At this point  some readers may be angry at what I just said.  Some may want to shout the usual insults towards anyone remotely on the left side of the political spectrum such as "libtard," "snowflake" or that my saying that is trying to shut down any speech I disagree with.  Others may be more subtle 0 asking if I really believe that Donny's base includes Nazis and white supremacists.  The latter may respond with "Hey, Trump can't be responsible for every person that votes for him."  or "Just because a few bad apples vote for him doesn't mean the whole movement is bad."  While I understand that not every individual that voted for electoral vote winner Donny is an admitted and open white supremacist, there is one reason why Donny has to take responsible for these people and their actions, especially yesterday - HE ACTIVELY COURTED THEM WHILE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!!!!

One of his earliest supporters of his campaign was former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke who praised Trump and actually said that voting against Trump was "treason to your heritage."  Duke was also at the rally over the weekend claiming its existence was to "fulfill the promise of Donald Trump."  As a candidate Donny's initial refusal to disavow Duke's support (and only halfheartedly disavowing it after much pressure) marked a massive break from tradition where politicians, even those with fairly racist leanings, knew to let people know that the support of Duke and his ilk weren't welcome.  Donny's immediate inaction was an opening of the floodgates.

"But that's just one case?" some of you may ask.  "You can't judge everyone by David Duke, using one example."  While it's true that a candidate can't patrol every person who supports them and that its inevitable that a few assholes will pop up along the way, Donny claimed to not know about Duke (even though interview footage from as far back at the 1990s shows otherwise) and refused to immediately respond to his support in kind.  It's also not an isolated incident.

Along the campaign trail, Donny's campaign repeated retweeted posts from white nationalist twitter sites (including a highly inaccurate one regarding homicide rates and police) even after he supposedly disavowed David Duke.  In addition, both Eric trump and Donald Jr made appearances on the Liberty Roundtable radio show, where they were interviewed by guest James Edwards, a white nationalist.  In Eric's case this happened a month (give or take a few days) before the election and a week after Trump economic advisor  Stephen Moore appeared on the show.  Add to this candidate Donny being endorsed by the KKK newspaper and the support, if not outright endorsement, of noted figures in the white nationalist movement such as Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer (both of whom's liking of Donny's so called condemnation is mentioned earlier) and a pattern becomes clear that, far from being an anomaly, candidate Donny and his ilk sought out their support somewhat actively, if not full throttle.  Whether it's sincere or a cynical tactic to win and election is irrelevant since the damage is done.

Even after winning office electoral vote winner Donny continued to throw the white supremacists bones of access in the form of hiring former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon (who has said he wanted to make his website a meeting place of the alt-right) as chief strategist, Stephen Miller as senior advisor for policy, and Sebastian Gorka to a position working for the National Security Advisor.  All three of these people have supported positions that have undertones ranging from anti Muslim prejudice to outright thinly veiled racism to them throughout their careers.  This further entrenches the fact that Donny's statement condemning hate and violence rings hollow since he couldn't even take the basic steps of making sure people of similar views didn't get key positions on his own goddamn staff. 

So where does that leave us now?  A small glimmer of hope lies in the number of Repub politicians somehow taking stronger stances on condemning what happened yesterday than electoral vote winner Donny (though they still haven't taken responsibility for not truly disavowing this shit during the campaign).  However, as Donny moves on to fearing further investigations and threatening a possible nuclear war he continues to be oblivious to how his statement did nothing to heal divisions and, in fact, actually further emboldened white supremacist shitbags who took Donny's so called "condemnation" as a sign of approval more than anything else.  Until we deal with the systemic underpinnings of racism and white supremacy in our society and take concrete steps to rectify the damage it has caused then the cycle of hate will only continue - and possibly get worse.

And that is why electoral vote winner Donny Trump's so called "condemnation: of the events in Charlottesville, VA yesterday wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For the time being I have decided to allow comments to this post.  However, I wish to state that I reserve the right to block ignorant hateful bullshit if it pops up and may choose not to allow comments on this post in the future if circumstances demand it.