White supremacist protesters march at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville Friday.
The president of the United States is enabling white supremacists. There’s no denying it anymore.
Donald Trump once again cemented himself on the wrong side of history, pleading Tuesday not to remove statues honoring the Confederacy. He argued that some of those who marched alongside neo-Nazis in the deadly Charlottesville protest were “fine people.”
Trump is legitimizing hate and guaranteeing that when more statues come down, protests will swell. He is making white supremacy socially acceptable in a way that we haven’t seen in generations. He’s empowering racists to come out of the closet and show their face. The president has our back!
Trump is using the old segregationist tactic, saying the other side is bad, too. He’s painfully wrong in a way that’s setting us back decades.
Violence on any side is never the answer but it’s dangerous to argue these white supremacy groups are one in the same with Black Lives Matters and Antifa, which stands for Anti-Fascists.
Black Lives Matters and Antifa are preaching against systematic racism and discrimination.
They hurt their own message when they resort to violence but at their core they’re fighting for an equal society.
As president, Trump is supposed to strive for a United States where all men — and women — are created equal. The Confederate States of America, a long-ago failed separatist movement, fought against these values. They lost the fight and half a million people died in their quest to protect slavery. Yet Trump has inexplicability taken the side of preserving this dark blemish in history because those who want to return to the darkness are those who also support Trump.
Trump has always been about Trump. But now he’s the president and he’s taking down the country’s moral fiber all for adoration from his dwindling base.
Trump took a page right out of the David Duke book of logic, saying on Tuesday that “George Washington was a slave owner. So will George Washington lose his status? Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson?”
Both Washington and Jefferson condemned slavery later in the lives and hoped for its eventual demise. Confederate leaders took the opposite approach — they pushed to extend slavery into new territories and preserve it.
There’s a reason David Duke praised Trump on Tuesday, writing “Thank You Mr. President & God Bless you for setting the record straight for ALL AMERICANS.”
White Supremacists no longer feel like they have to live in the shadows. Many will argue “I’m one of those fine people the president was talking about.”
Trump is an enabler and we should fear what comes next.