A 'Very Fine' Outrage

Has it been four days or weeks or months or years since Donald Trump stood before the press in the lobby of Trump Tower and decided to tell the world that “both sides” were equally to blame for what happened in Charlottesville?

Who knows?

The only thing that is for certain is that this country is still reeling from the hideous spectacle of an American president with so little intellectual prowess and moral fiber that he is unable to discern the ethical distinction between the provocations of Nazis and those who oppose them.

The memory of Donald Trump standing in that lobby, vociferously insisting that some of the people marching alongside torch-wielding, hate-ravaged, Jew-baiting Nazis were “very fine people” is now indelibly seared into our national consciousness. It was a tragedy for this country on par with The Challenger disaster and a disgrace as inexpungible as the assassination of JFK.

We will never live it down. We will never fully recover. We will never be able to forget it.

And yet, as is despicably customary for Trump, he decided not only to not back down, but to pour salt into our national wounds. He found it necessary to follow up that detestable spectacle by making it clear that Confederate statues and memorials, which dot the landscape of this country, are “beautiful” and should remain standing; thus ensuring that the blight of slavery remain forever glorified in our city parks and town squares. What could be better than that?

Somewhere in the universe, Hitler and Goering are clinking beer mugs and toasting to their abiding success.

Unfortunately for Trump and tragically for this country, the broad meshes of his mind just can’t seem to filter through our collective outrage. Why, he must be wondering, are we making such a ridiculous fuss over all of this? After all, in apportioning equal measures of blame, he was only trying to demonstrate just how equitable and fair-minded he is.

Well, let us endeavor to help this American President understand why — if you are marching merrily alongside the inflamed, spittle-spewing descendants of Hitler’s Third Reich — chances are you are not a “very fine” person.

Suppose we were to assist him with images of children of the Holocaust, juxtaposed with pictures of his own Jewish grandchildren.

Suppose we sat Trump down, put these photographs alongside each other, and then — as though trying to teach the alphabet to a severely learning-disabled child — we asked him one simple question.

Would you put your grandchildren alone in a room with any of those very fine people who were marching on the side of the Nazis that day?

How would you like Arabella to spend the afternoon being watched over by one of the “very fine” marchers who saw no problem with the screaming hordes he was rubbing elbows with? How would you like Theodore to sit on the lap of a “very fine” Jew-hating white supremacist? How would you like little Joseph to be babysat by one of the “very fine” fascist thugs you are so eager to defend?

Because, Mr. President, make no mistake. Just as you can’t seem to distinguish the difference between a Nazi and a morally outraged objector to Nazis, we can guarantee you that those “very fine” people will not be able to distinguish your Jewish grandchildren from the ones who deserved to be tagged, assembled, and carted off to gas chambers not so very long ago.

Do the pictures help, sir?

Can you now get your addled mind around the not-so-very-fine distinction between conscientious objectors and those they were objecting to?

Can you figure out why it’s not a noble thing to wrack your brains in order to come up with ANY defense for a murderous ideology that took the lives of children exactly like those sparkling, cherub-faced little grandchildren of yours?

Do the visual aids clue you in?

Or shall we languish in our “very fine” outrage until your equally dense collaborators finally discern the distinction between the Republican party and the party of Adolf Hitler?

The children of this country await your very fine epiphanies.