Words Matter!
What we "say" and "don't say" matters!
The hate groups that marched in Charlottesville, Virginia are abhorrent on all levels — Trump's defending of that "side" is a slap on the face to everything the office of the Presidency and this country stands for!
‘Many’ and ‘Both’ Sides
The President's initial response in identifying hate as a problem on "many sides" without condemning those groups rooted in intolerance and violence was dumbfounding for the rational person to absorb. The continual emboldening of hate groups that publicly show support for this President insults us as a nation and tarnishes the office of the President.
No vote is worth the price of being silent — not calling out groups intolerant of others who incite hate and promote the degradation of our society is cowardly and un-American. Two days after the event we watched a President struggle to call out these deplorable groups — in a manner akin to watching a child having been scolded by parents and forced to apologize.
The President is what he has portrayed himself to be all along, a bully — one with a highly visible pulpit.
Factual Side
The irony of the President commenting that he wanted all the facts before speaking is fascinating. More than any other President this one has lied on all issues great and small from day one of his campaign through the present.
It is stifling to contemplate that once the President did know the “facts” that he defended those people there protesting that represented hate in its ugliest form where chants of 'Jews will not replace us', 'Blood and Soil' and 'White Lives Matter', were part of those facts available to this President.
As if to add salt to the wounds created the President argues in support of a statue of General Robert E. Lee remaining by evoking the names of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to justify his position. Such statues are long overdue to be removed from public view. A statue of General Robert E. Lee, who in serving the Confederate Army fought for the continued enslavement of people, should indeed earn him a place in history on the pages of books — not memorialized in bronze.
After his so called review of facts Trump described the situation as two-sided — equating hate groups and his newly introduced label of “alt-left” for those that were counter-protesting as if they were on equal footing in sharing responsibility for the violence, hate and tragic events that transpired. In his most recent rant this President commented that ‘fine people on both sides’ were present that day — who are those fine people that marched under a banner of hate that this President is referring too? The alt-right, neo-Nazi’s, the KKK?
Did the President in his review of the facts see what so many others had — people chanting slogans and carrying torches — echoing hate — preaching intolerance — embodying everything that is anti-American.
No “fine” person would be mingling in this type of crowd!
It would behoove those that support the President and engage in talking points that attempt to re-frame and spin his remarks to watch the footage released by VICE News that captured the tone, mood and imagery that transpired.
American Side
If the red — white — and blue line for people regarding this President hasn't been crossed at this point, it begs the question of when does moral clarity in our political establishment trump partisan loyalties and agendas?
The State of America under the Trump White House will never be United. We have gone from a White House rooted in hope to one entrenched in hate!
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing.” —Edmund Burke
What line needs to be crossed for the moral compasses of our empowered office holders in Congress to point in the direction of right over wrong — and act to remove the Presidential Seal from empowering the tweets and megaphone of Donald J. Trump!