NYT: The Hate He Dares Not Speak Of

[babylonsister]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/opinion/trump-charlottesville-hate-stormer.html?smid=fb-nytopinion&smtyp=cur

The Hate He Dares Not Speak Of

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAUG. 13, 2017


Let’s discard the fiction that President Trump wasn’t placating white supremacists by responding so weakly to the neo-Nazi violence that killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old counter demonstrator in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. The neo-Nazis heard his message loud and clear.

“He didn’t attack us,” crowed The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website, about Mr. Trump’s statement after the two days of racist demonstrations. “Refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”

The police said a 20-year-old man, who participated in the long-planned protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, plowed his car into peaceful counterdemonstrators on Saturday, killing Ms. Heyer and injuring 19 others. He was charged with second-degree murder. Two Virginia state troopers responding to the protests died in a helicopter crash.

After the attack, and before he spoke, Mr. Trump reportedly consulted advisers. They told him to condemn the white nationalists who fomented the violence.

He did not. Instead, he spoke of an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence that’s on many sides.”

Mr. Trump is alone in modern presidential history in his willingness to summon demons of bigotry and intolerance in service to himself. He began his political career on a lie about President Barack Obama’s citizenship and has failed to firmly condemn the words and deeds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan leaders and other bigots who rallied behind him. A number of these people, including David Duke, the former Klan imperial wizard, and Richard Spencer, self-styled theorist of the alt-right, were part of the amen chorus of bigots in Charlottesville.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/opinion/trump-charlottesville-hate-stormer.html?smid=fb-nytopinion&smtyp=cur

[Gothmog]

1. This is a very powerful editorial