His hatred was enough to drive him 543 miles. Trump's movement helped foment it
Many of the right wing racist protesters in Charlottesville were not local, based on the findings of those working to identify the marchers. Many of them, including the killer, drove hundreds of miles to get there. That is critical to seeing what is happening.
Did he spend those 543 miles dreaming about crashing a car into a crowd of counterprotestors? Or was this a spur of the moment decision, to slam down on the accelerator? I suspect the latter -- after all, he went there seeking and expecting more of his own kind, not seeking the "enemy". If the destination had been a BLM march or an anti-Trump march, violence might have been the intent all along. But here, he expected to find others like himself. So what motivated him to drive 543 miles? Attachment to a statue of a long dead general? Doubtful. I think it was a desire for glory, to be part of some grand empowermemt of others like himself. The election of Trump had felt like a triumph.
Hate that arises within the soul of one person is sometimes dangerous but haters reinforced by fellow haters turns into something more convicted and deadly. The strengthening of hate into an ugly political force is happening on the internet.
Trump re-empowers it with his campaign rallies. Refusing to disavow the white nationalists that supported him, he focuses all blame on "the other" with his rhetoric. His counterterrorism people were told to drop their focus on white supremacists groups.His spokesman the tiresome whiner Gorka just a few days ago was faulting a reporter for asking about white supremacist groups. Gorka said that the idea of a “lone wolf attack" is a ruse to point blame away from al Qaeda and ISIS when “[t]here has never been a serious attack or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS or al Qaeda.”
Okay, Gorka, I do agree with THAT: this angry 20 year old was not a "lone wolf". So, what WAS he part of? He was part of a wolf pack, one that the current administration has no interest in stopping.
If ten or twenty racists had showed up from local Charlottesville, they would have seen that there was no glory, and that they were pathetic or powerless. But if you've been stirred up enough to drive 600 miles and you get there and there's several hundred other pumped up people from all over the country, it's much more potent. And the president's got your back. But those counter-protestors -- the damn liberals, the Other -- are standing in your way.
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