As America grapples with its grim new political reality, which is that it elected as president an angry, broken old man who couldn't go three days before publicly renouncing his public renunciation of white supremacy to the delight of white supremacists everywhere, we're moving firmly into a new era of political alignment, too: You either denounce him, or you're also a morally bankrupt bigot. Even if you solemnly swear that there isn't a single racist bone in your whole body, standing by Donald Trump indicates that you'll at least tolerate racism in service of some (probably still repugnant) cause to which you stubbornly cling. Your racism is not less evil because it happens to be pragmatic.

Predictably, beleaguered GOP communications staffers have been straining to hit just the right balance of appropriate solemnity and righteous indignation when releasing the token statements distancing their bosses from Trump's bigotry-fueled temper tantrum. But outraged Republicans who disavow racism "in all its forms" without mentioning Donald Trump's name are badly missing the point. The point is not that bigotry is bad. We know that. What makes Charlottesville different than any other horrifying instance of hate-motivated violence is that for reasons known only to him, his God, and probably Steve Bannon, the leader of your party—sorry, Troubled Good Republicans, but anyone who becomes President of the United States on your ticket is the leader of your party whether you like it or not—is apparently medically incapable of saying so. We all reject racism. We're waiting on you guys to reject the racist.

I understand that for an elected official, the idea of turning on your own president feels like equal parts deep betrayal of one's ideals and career death sentence. Politics is virulently tribal, and no matter what spectacularly evil and/or stupid choices they may make, when one of your own steps in it, there is tremendous internal pressure to grimace, shut your eyes tightly, and close ranks for the good of the party. As much as I would like to believe that reacting to some of the red lines this president has gleefully crossed should not require lengthy and serious deliberation from his peers, I'm willing to concede that they probably won't make such decisions rashly, either.

Thus, let's call it a gentleman's 48 hours, beginning the moment Donald Trump stood in his gold-plated lobby and yelled about how the Americans murdered and injured while protesting neo-Nazism should have obtained a fucking permit from the city first. Even if you believe that Monday's halfhearted repudiation absolved him of Saturday's tacit endorsement, Tuesday's nightmarish debacle left no doubt about where the president stands on this issue, and where everyone else should stand on him, too. Donald Trump is a disgrace to this country, and if within the next day or so, you as an elected official find yourself unable to summon the great courage to condemn his spirited public defense of white supremacy, your moral failure is just as shameful as his.

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House (of course)

Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader (ditto)

Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader

Dean Heller, Nevada senator and 2018 private citizen

Jeff Flake, Arizona senator

James Lankford, Oklahoma senator

Orrin Hatch, Utah senator

Thom Tillis, North Carolina senator

Todd Young, Indiana senator

Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania senator

Rob Portman, Ohio senator

Ron Johnson, Wisconsin senator

Ben Sasse, Nebraska senator

Ted Cruz, Texas senator

[Kidding. He has yet to say anything.]

This post will be updated in the event that any of the aforementioned individuals are miraculously able to locate their spines. I am hopeful, but not optimistic.

Update, 8/17: Haha, again, kidding. None of them have said anything new. Mitch McConnell is apparently really mad, though. Privately, of course.

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