The president’s refusal to properly condemn the attack in Charlottesville is consistent with past comments and a divisive campaign that stoked hatred

After the deadly violence involving white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Donald Trump’s failure to find the right response, Barack Obama stepped into the void with an assist from South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Trump’s tepid response, so stark in contrast to his predecessor’s handling of tragedies such as the Sandy Hook school and Charleston church shootings, is arguably the low point of his short presidency to date. It is likely to dominate journalists’ questions at his next public appearance – originally expected in Washington DC on Monday but now unlikely during his single day in the capital.

How Trump’s paranoid White House sees ‘deep state’ enemies on all sides Read more

Speaking at his golf club in New Jersey on Saturday after a man rammed a car into protesters, Trump said: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.” The president added defensively: “It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time.”

No mention of racism. No mention of white supremacists. No mention of the Ku Klux Klan. Instead, the repetition of “on many sides”, a characteristic Trump verbal tic used for emphasis. It served merely to emphasise his tin ear and imply moral equivalence between neo-Nazi demonstrators and those who took to the streets to oppose them. There were echoes of some white South African politicians who still occasionally float the notion that colonialism wasn’t all bad.

The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi publication, expressed delight: “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate … on both sides! So he implied the antifa [anti-fascists] are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all.”

Whereas Obama was oblique, the former vice-president Joe Biden punched back directly, tweeting: “There is only one side. #Charlottesville.”

Significantly, Republicans, losing patience with Trump in recent weeks, also berated his failure of leadership. Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union: “I think the president needs to step up today and … call it for what it is. It’s evil, it’s white nationalism, it’s bigotry and it’s unacceptable. And if he doesn’t do that, we can continue to answer the question of why. But I believe he has a chance to do that today.”

Senator Orrin Hatch, 83, of Utah, who was eight years old when his brother Jesse, a nose turret gunner in B-24 bomber, was killed in the second world war, tweeted: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

Senator Marco Rubio, beaten by Trump in the party primaries, tweeted: “Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists.”

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican, called it a “grotesque act of domestic terrorism” and called for a justice department investigation, which is going ahead.

Don't blame addicts for America's opioid crisis. Here are the real culprits | Chris McGreal Read more

Under growing pressure on Sunday, an unnamed White House spokesperson issued a fresh statement, insisting that the president “condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups”.

But Trump himself remained unusually silent, in person and on Twitter. And Gabriel Sherman, a journalist at Vanity Fair magazine, tweeted: “When I asked senior WH official why Trump didn’t condemn Cville Nazis, he said: ‘What about the leftist mob. Just as violent if not more so.’”

The stance was shocking but not surprising. Trump’s opinionated statements and policy positions are all over the place, except on two issues: Vladimir Putin and white nationalists. Even as cabinet secretaries and members of Congress condemn and sanction the Russian leader, the president is unfailingly reluctant to criticise him directly.

Even as his daughter Ivanka tweeted condemnation of white supremacists and neo-Nazis on Sunday, the president was, his critics say, committing crimes of omission.

There were similarities with February 2016, when, in an interview on CNN, Trump refused to condemn the Ku Klux Klan or disavow his endorsement by the former Klansman David Duke. He later blamed a faulty earpiece. Duke, in Charlottesville on Saturday, told the USA Today Network: “We’re gonna fulfil the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s gonna take our country back.”

Neo-Nazis and the so-called “alt-right” have been a crucial part of the Trump base. Critics have noted the nods, the winks, even the Republican national convention speech, with its giant screens and logos that bordered on fascist parody.

Quick guide What is the 'alt-right'? Show Hide Who coined the term 'alt-right'? The white supremacist Richard Spencer devised the term in 2010. He has described the movement as "identity politics for white Americans and for Europeans around the world". What does it stand for? The movement supports extreme rightwing ideologies, including white nationalism – used interchangeably with white supremacism – and antisemitism. It positions itself broadly against egalitarianism, democracy, universalism and multiculturalism. Some "alt-right" supporters have argued that their hardline, extremist positions are not truly meant, but are a way to disrupt conventional and accepted thinking. Memes, irony and ambiguity are sometimes used in an attempt to wrongfoot critics. How does the 'alt-right' relate to the Trump administration? The Trump administration includes figures who are associated with the "alt-right", including the former Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon, who worked as chief strategist in Trump's White House in 2017. Many of Trump's policy positions have won favour with the movement.

And it goes beyond mere political opportunism. Trump has a track record. In 1973, he and his father were sued by the justice department for racial discrimination because prospective black tenants were blocked from renting in their buildings.

In 1989, after African American and Latino teenagers were accused of assaulting and raping a white woman in Central Park, New York, Trump spent $85,000 to put full-page ads in the four daily newspapers, calling for the revival of the death penalty. The five were later exonerated by DNA evidence, but Trump continued to insist last year: “They admitted they were guilty.”

More recently, Trump was a key proponent of the “birther” movement, questioning whether Obama was born in the US and therefore a legitimate president. He ran a divisive campaign for president that stoked divisions and portrayed inner cities as lost causes. His inaugural address pushed a theme of “American carnage”.

The White House issued a statement to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day that did not mention Jews, Judaism or antisemitism. The former press secretary Sean Spicer was forced to apologise after claiming that Adolf Hitler, who gassed millions of Jews during the Holocaust, did not use chemical weapons.

Trump’s attorney general is Jeff Sessions, who has long been dogged by accusations of racism. His chief strategist is Steve Bannon, who once proudly said of Breitbart News: “We’re the platform for the alt-right.”

Trump’s deputy assistant is Sebastian Gorka, who has worn a medal awarded to the Hungarian group Vitezi Rend, linked by some to Nazi collaborators. Gorka said last week: “It’s this constant, ‘Oh, it’s the white man. It’s the white supremacists. That’s the problem.’ No, it isn’t … go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East, and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester.”

A president’s actions and words can only do so much, but they can create a climate in which certain groups, attitudes and mindsets flourish. Trump, 71, will not switch course now, for as Michelle Obama once observed: “Being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.”

It remains to be seen whether many Republicans will feel a moral obligation, or a willingness, to challenge who he is.