Right But Wrong: Trump's Defense of Confederate Symbols and Its Threat to Color-Blind Liberalism

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/17/right-but-wrong-trumps-defense-of-confederate-symbols-and-its-threat-to-color-blind-liberalism/
Date Written:  2017-08-17
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2017
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21416

The ugly scenes of neo-nazis, neo-Confederates, and self-proclaimed white supremacists marching in large numbers and brawling on the streets of Charlottesville shocked American culture. President Trump spoke three times commenting on those troubling events.

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Obviously angered that he had been pressed earlier to place blame for the violence where it squarely belonged, on the side of the racist alt-right, Trump lashed out at the "alt-left": "You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent…. There was a group on this side, you can call them the left. You have just called them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is."

Trump's remarks were a firehose of gasoline gushed onto a political firestorm. Almost giddy with the easy political points to score, Democrats rhetorically lashed Trump to the Klansmen and Nazis he defended. Nearly the entire Republican leadership took to Twitter to denounce bigotry, even Senator Orrin Hatch, who had earlier said Trump was "not a racist," after Trump attacked federal judge Gonzalo P. Curiel's fairness because of his Mexican heritage, tweeted, "We should never hesitate to call out hate. Whenever and wherever we see it."