After the clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump was widely criticized for his vague public response to the events.
Initially on Saturday, the president refused to acknowledge the actions of neo-Nazi groups and white supremacists, one of whom drove a car into a crowd of demonstrators, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Instead, Trump said “many sides” were to blame for the violence.
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Then in a not-so-quick turnabout on Monday, he made a statement condemning the very groups he did not mention two days earlier.
In a prepared script that Trump stuck to, he then called out neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacist groups as being “repugnant,” with no place for them in America.
All seemed relatively good again in the Trump White House, until yesterday’s dreaded press conference.
When pressed by reporters to explain his recent responses, in classic Trump style, he bit the bait and staunchly defended his initial comments, again repeating “both sides” were culpable.
What Trump seems to forget in his “both sides” analogy is that historically the “alt-left” (as he strangely dubbed it) hasn’t been linked to ethnic cleansing via the gas chamber or lynching.
We can’t say that about the neo-Nazis or KKK who claim the “alt-right.”
The president seems oblivious to the reasons for defeating the Nazis back in World War II.
Or were “both sides” to blame then, too?
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