opinion

EDITORIAL: Trump did what he wanted to do — empower racists

In the aftermath of President Trump’s demoralizing press conference Tuesday, in which the President of the United States felt compelled to soften criticisms of white supremacist groups, conservative talking points in defense of Trump have emerged. They should not be left to spread as evidence of the supposed enlightenment of right-wing deliverers of truth.

Every supportive repetition only gives more aid and comfort to neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists of all description. Those trafficking in such tortured rationales aren’t defending Republicans and conservative principles. They’re not standing up for their president. They are doing their part to empower bigotry and hate in this country.

Trump’s heart of darkness on display Tuesday laid bare his cynical self-interest. His goal was to assure the bigots who helped elect him that he still had their back. He wanted to tell the entire world that the white supremacists shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for the violent attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a car slamming into a crowd left one dead and nearly 20 injured. It was the left-wing counterprotesters – the people objecting to the white-power drivel being spewed by marchers – that showed up without a permit who inflamed emotions.

Let’s start with that. The white supremacists had a permit. Wonderful. They have a right to assemble. That doesn’t mean their hateful message must be heard without opposition. They have no right to expect that.

Some of the counterprotesters did indeed show up looking for trouble, there’s little doubt of that. That makes them comparable to the right-wing crazies? That’s like saying a rape victim who fights back is as guilty of violence as the attacker.

Trump made it a point to emphasize that there were some “very fine people” on the side of the Nazis and Klansmen. Really? If any such people were innocently caught up in that mass of inhumanity, we hope they got far away, quickly. Anyone willingly staying in that crowd is far from “good” or “excellent,” to use Trump’s usual language.

But there’s a bigger question here regarding Trump’s intentions. Even if we were to stipulate that, yes, there might have been a good person or two in the supremacist group or yes, there were some violent people among the counterprotesters too, why is Trump picking this particular occasion, when it’s paramount to speak out against the hate in the strongest possible terms, to so carefully parse the circumstances?

The nation not only wept but collectively rolled its eyes when Trump had the gall to say that he, unlike most politicians, waits for the facts before making statements. That, he said, was why he chose not to specifically name neo-Nazis or other participants shortly after the attack occurred.

That explanation is, of course, not even remotely believable. Trump is typically the exact opposite of that. Unlike most politicians, Trump is quick to blurt out comments without having many facts at all, which he does regularly on Twitter. That’s supposedly part of his political “charm,” an unfiltered outspokenness and honesty. He also hasn’t hesitated to lump together all Muslims as potential terrorists, or all Mexicans as unwanted immigrants, or all mainstream media as liberal purveyors of fake news.

But when it comes to white supremacists – people who like him and say nice things about him — then it’s so terribly important to resist stereotypes and not find guilt in association, to understand the nuances of their causes and demonstrations? Why, because Nazis and Klansmen deserve the benefit of the doubt?

Is Trump just plain dumb? Does he have an exceedingly narrow worldview fostered by a lifetime of entitlement? Or — as some of his biggest fans argue — is he really an instinctive political genius playing some multi-layered game with all of us, lashing out here, cajoling there, lighting fires in one place to draw attention from another as part of a grand master plan we can’t conceive?

Don’t bet on the latter.

There’s one more talking point to consider. Trump, we are told, certainly did strongly condemn the violence in Virginia, and all those responsible for it. While he wanted to spread the blame, he didn’t hedge over his disgust with the attack itself. That may be true in the words he spoke. But look at how white supremacists reacted. They understood the coded language. They saw Trump’s “condemnation” for what it was — a great victory for the racists and the anti-Semites who now know they have a friend in the White House, a president who will shield them from being targeted for responsibility for the inevitable future acts of violence.

Trump should have just given them all a wink and a thumbs up. The effect would have been the same.