This has been a weird week for the President—one damaging story faded into another, faded into yet another. But I want to focus here on the issue of white supremacy. His failure to make a clear statement against it this week figures to have repercussions beyond the news cycle, that has lately been dominated by his COVID infection.
The pushback by his supporters this week was: he did repudiate white supremacy and he has repudiated it in the past.
That is true so far as it goes—but I maintain that, in 2020, you cannot, even if you are Donald Trump, have an overtly racist platform. What you need is plausible deniability. As we pointed out previously, research from the American National Election Studies (ANES) study from the 2016 Election, one of the top predictors of whether or not some voted for Trump was the sense of racial threat (as opposed to economic threat).
The result has been a presidency that has attempted to fan those flames of racial discord and to push up against the line of white supremacy in order to come as close as possible to it without crossing into clear areas of racial prejudice.
We see that this this week, with his Proud Boys remark: “Proud Boys, stand back and standby.”
The Proud Boys didn’t take that as a repudiation—they took it as a call to arms. It’s on their logo. They view this as a matter of pride, not a matter of repudiation.
So did the President repudiate white supremacy? His supporters argue he did.
Chris Wallace: “[Are] you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and to say they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in 
Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”
Trump responds, “Sure I’m willing to do that.”
Is that enough? Apparently for his supporters.
But in real time, Chris Wallace did not believe so.
“Then do it, say it,” he said.
Trump responds, “You wanna call them—what do you wanna call them, give me a name. Who would you like me to condemn?”
Wallace responds, “White supremacists.”
Joe Biden chimes in, “Proud Boys.”
Trump says, “Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by.” Then he moves on to talk about the Antifa.
The problem is, “sure” is not a repudiation—and the clearest statement he made, the Proud Boys interpreted as a “call for arms.”
The problem that Trump has is merely saying “sure” is not a condemnation. Condemnation requires an affirmative statement—preferably one that is clear and unequivocal. That never happened.
What he needed to do was make a clear and unequivocal statement condemning white supremacy. Heck, his advisors had to know this question was coming, why didn’t they have him prepared with a strong statement? And then stop talking.
His supporters are doing him no favors on this either. James Robbins, an opinion columnist with USA Today, argued, “Trump did condemn white supremacists, too bad so many people won’t listen.”
He makes a lot of mistakes here when he argues, “Can we once and for all kill off the distortion that Donald Trump called white supremacists ‘very fine people?’ In the very same comments people are always quoting, Trump said ‘I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the White nationalists.’”
The problem once again is—not exactly.
I have poured over this interview so many different times, and the problem is that his condemnation of neo-Nazis and white nationalists comes in a different paragraph as the infamous “both sides” statement. This is once again an example where Trump could have been unequivocal but again attempted to straddle the line of white supremacy rather than being clear.
He did state that “there’s blame on both sides…” and later that “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
Then later, he says, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists—because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.”
I have noted that, wait a second, who was at Charlottesville? White supremacists, the alt-right, KKK, Neo-Nazis, Neo-confederates, and the Traditionalist Workers Party.
My argument is who in the heck is Trump talking about in those groups that he is calling a fine person?
One of our commenters noted that there were people at the rally not in those groups, but opposed to removing Confederate statues.
Really? This was billed as a “Unite the Right” rally, but this wasn’t the mainstream right. This was always a white supremacist rally. So, while it is true that the event was organized in protest to the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville’s former Lee Park, the reality is that the only people who were going to go there were those comfortable being alongside these hate groups—who actually organized the event.
The event itself was organized by Jason Kessler, himself an avowed neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist.
Again, there is no escape hatch here. The people at this rally were either white supremacists—or fellow travelers who had no compunction against showing up at an event that was organized by and dominated by such groups.
In both cases, Trump makes the same “mistake.” He should have just repudiated it, and moved on. But he couldn’t do that. You can argue that he misspoke—perhaps—but he never said he did. I put “mistake” in quotes because it seems to be not a mistake, but a calculated move by him.
He bumps up against white supremacy, he mobilizes the foot soldiers, he understands that key groups are activated by racial threat—and yet he issues weak denials as his security blanket of plausible deniability.
Just as Trump needs to make a clear, unequivocal denial and then stop talking, his supporters need to stop trying to defend this. There is no defense. His statement was clear. His non-statements are equally clear.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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First off, for a guy who claims that Trump and national politics are “not really what we cover” this is the one of many articles about Trump within a few days.
David is in the wrong profession, he should be a mind reader because he thinks he knows what people think and actually mean when they say things even when they don’t actually say it.
He states in his article:
He goes on to say:
So David knows that everyone there were white supremacists and not there because they wanted to show their support against the removal of the statues. Even some on the left have said that statues shouldn’t be removed. He’s good, he read all those minds in Charlottesville and knows what group they were from and why they were there.
Thens David writes:
But later writes:
So which is it, was Trump’s statement “clear” as to what David thinks he meant or was it “true” as to what Trump actually said?
Then there’s this:
But David knows what Trump meant, he’s a mind reader. If you ever need to know what you actually meant when you didn’t actually say it or what you were thinking just ask David.
But what do we cover? Social justice. What is this about? Racism. White supremacy. The division of America by race. And of course the trickle down impact moves us right into our bailiwick. So yeah – we Trump goes into race, Trump goes into immigration, we’ve been covering it for four years. For the most part, the rest I have left alone.
Everything else here you are trying to parse and explain away his playing footsie with white supremacy. I’ve made my point, you can try to defend Trump or you can move on.
From reading the article and you trying to imply what Trump meant I feel it’s you who’s doing the parsing my friend.
My position is: he did not directly repudiate it. He could have. He didn’t want to. Wallace gave him several chances to do so – he said sure but never followed up. His people had to have known this was going to come up and yet they failed to provide him with a direct answer or he failed to follow their instructions – either way a huge fail.
Keith
I find your comment rich in irony. You accuse David of “mind reading” but seem to feel that Trump is an expert in that field. The organizer’s identity and positions were well known. Interviews with another organizer made it clear that the intent was to provoke violence. Your criticize David, but accept Trump’s knowledge of the reasons for other “fine people” for being there.
Tia, did you the excerpt from the article I posted below?
So Trump was right as evidenced from this quote from a participant and her friends at the protest.
Interview snippets from CNN analyst Steve Cortez:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/08/10/prager_u_steve_cortes_the_charlottesville_lie.html#!
You identify Steve Cortes as a CNN analyst but fail to note that he is also a Trump campaign Senior Advisor.
Trump’s comments on white supremacists can, at best, charitably be characterized as ambiguous. If his supporters are correct as to his intent, he could easily have cleared things up by explicitly acknowledging how his statements could have been interpreted as less than definitive and then set the record straight. He could have repudiated the support of white supremacists (something he wouldn’t do because they comprise a substantial portion of his base). But the man is incapable of admitting to any mistake or misstatement; his overinflated ego gets in the way. If there is a predominant impression that Trump harbors racist and white supremacist views, don’t blame the media or political opponents; blame his own character flaws.
My favorite Trump line of all time was when he went to the Mexican Border and declared “We are full up.”
I think it didn’t get the attention it deserved because nobody wanted to imagine where he came up with that line. But as a schlub commenter I’m not bound by not using my imagination. Lucky for you.
I imagine a young Donald Trump in his father’s office when a black person or maybe a Puerto Rican came in looking to rent an apartment.
Old Fred immediately, reflexively and without thinking responded “We’re full up.” Donald of course knew this wasn’t true but was learning the business and of course understood the Corleone creed “Never go against the family.”
Today Donald often uses lines he learned long ago. Remember “Bad hombre?”
He got that one from Yosemite Sam.
To Trump its all a joke (or at least it was until Hope Hicks coughed this week) and his supporters are in on it. So anything he says isn’t to be believed anyway.
So did Trump repudiate racism. Laugh out loud. The joke is on anyone who wants to take his remarks seriously. Including his defenders.
Trump cannot afford to repudiate a substantial portion of his base.
I was watching some clips from leaders of the John Birch Society in the 1960s. (Full disclosure, my dad used to attend JBS meetings which were hosted in our basement when I was growing up).
Interestingly, they “supported” civil rights… but it came with a “but.” But we do not support those radical “negroes” who are just tools of the communists. But, those negroes need to see how they have more cars than all the Africans in Africa—they need to be thankful.
So, yeah, the John Birch Society supported civil rights… but.
And that is the way modern segregationist language works—always a but: “Hey we are all for gun rights and militias, but not Black Panthers, not Antifa. We are opposed to racism but there are lots of good people who are racist. We want strong black families but there is something wrong with the black family in America.” And it goes on and on: police violence, the war on drugs, broken windows policing, stop and frisk, bail… “We want justice, but those other people just don’t deserve it like we do. We oppose prejudice but, you know, some of those Proud Boys have a point…”
There is nothing novel in the way Donald Trump treats these issues. He follows in a long line of people who add a caveat to every single discussion of race. I don’t care why they do it, but to deny at this late date that they somehow what they are saying is not what they mean, or that they are being taken out of context, is simply an ahistorical analysis of what is happening.
Trump is never clear. He speaks in half-sentences and spirally-rotating circles. One can quote him and not capture his meaning. Everything is open to interpretation and easy to isolate to sound however one wants it to. The extreme example was Trump saying something outrageous about a 3rd term, and then immediately saying, “watch what they do with this”. And indeed his completely provoking statement was headlines next day without letting the camera roll a few seconds where he says the whole thing was a trap for the media. I’m not defending this, it’s not how a president should act, but quoting trump is like breathing water.
What bothers me of the tone of the article is it’s about ‘saying it right’. The modern movement is so cult-like. Say it like this, or you’re racist. um . . . no, I’m gonna say it MYyyyyyyyyyy Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. What good is the article if Trump is or isn’t? It only speaks to those who are already convinced. It’s been nearly four years – I think people decided long ago.
As a Jew, I feel an obligation to call out white supremacy wherever I see it. That to me is the lesson of the Holocaust.
“As a Jew” (those three words are almost a meme in themselves) I’ve actually ‘called out’ (as if that gives some God-like power to ‘saying you disagree a really really really whole bunch’) the Anti-Defamation League in recent years for being ridiculously over-sensitive in ‘calling out’ minor infractions (I guess you’d call them micro-aggressions) when we, as Jews, should stick to serious stuff – at least the medium-ish stuff on up. A local example would be “grout out the Jews” written in grout between tiles. As a fan of grout humor, that had me laughing. Not every tiny insult or trip-up needs to be dragged before the supreme court of progressive opinion.
Of course this has nothing to do with the President. But in recent years, I’m a lot more concerned about the violence and suppression of free speech coming from Antifa and their ilk than from the Proud Boys (and their Black Latino leader) and their ilk. One only need look at where the actual violence, the actual suppression of speech, actual condemning of literature (“burning books”) is coming from. I’m not saying this in support Trump nor Proud Boys — both of which I despise, so if you take it that way you are twisting my words. I’m saying the term, “we have found the enemy and it is us” exists for a reason.
As far as this so-called ‘lesson of the Holocaust’ — over the years since WWII, Jews as a whole have done only are fair-to-Midland job of recognizing and condemning genocidal events, most especially when they don’t occur within the confines of ‘western culture’. I think we ‘as Jews’ need to step up on the big stuff.
Ultimately I think the lesson of the Holocaust is summed up as “when they came for me, there was no one left……” If you want to argue that we should do more, I won’t disagree. If you want to argue that Trump and the Proud Boys don’t reach the level… that’s more debatable. During the early years of the Nazi regime, many did not believe that Germany would go as far as they did. In the end, I see alarming things from this president that I feel inclined to call out. You may not. The rest I think is largely subjective. The non-event always confounds scholars. How do you know what you prevented?
As a woman, a group that is still targeted in ways large and small, from limited admission to the executive suites to dog whistles on the street, I see this differently. As a young woman, there were places to be avoided even in “good areas” of town because the catcalls and whistles were more than just annoying, they were intimidating, and any young woman was fair game. As an aspiring professional, I was told ( in the early ’80s) that I could not be a surgeon by multiple men in power, including some hiring physicians. Crude jokes were told in my presence on a routine basis, but it was clear I was not “one of the boys”. All this nonsense only stopped when I retired at 65 and effectively, in our society, became invisible at will. My reason for writing? What is “the small stuff” is quite subjective. At what point in a young woman’s life does the constant drone of “you’re not good enough” or “you’re taking a man’s place” become so discouraging that she stops trying? Maybe we should stop pretending that we all share the same standard for what is small and what is large stuff, and just treat each other as equals from the beginning.
The lesson of the holocaust should be to expose the white supremacist racists to a sun lamp or tanning bed. Since nature selects, this exposure to a skin cancer selection process will limit the population of white supremacists who, by dint of the lack of melanin in their dermis, are an inferior race for this trait and will be limited from the gene pool due to their reduced biological fitness. Thus limiting the Social Darwinist nonsense they fetishize.
There are many lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. Number one is that without a state we are like the Kurds. Number two is that passive resistance doesn’t always work.
So there you have it, three Jews, five opinions.
I have been seeing this kind of sentiment a lot (e.g. Rod Dreher and other writers over at the American Conservative—which I read daily and appreciate about 25% of the time—like Andrew Bacevich’s article today):
I see actual violence in Charlottesville, Charleston, and Kenosha. Actual violence as in people dead.
Dreher goes on and on about the dangers of “wokeness” and “cancel culture” as if the “left” has a monopoly on trying to silence certain forms of speech. It doesn’t. To say so is to ignore the systematic take-over of the airways by people who will not allow any alternative to their narrow view of history to be spoken. Now you might argue that it is just the “free market” but it actually a deliberate attempt to use media to distort information. They have done it with COVID-19 and it, too, is deadly.
Beyond that is a long history of shunning, silencing and removing people from communities that have been practiced by the “right” for centuries. It continues. It also continues in the way textbooks (approved locally) describe the very history of this nation.
But when someone speaks up to condemn racist language (most often coded) and asks that it be silenced because of the real damage it causes, THEY are the ones who are a threat to free speech. I am not buying it.
The groups the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are concerned about ARE groups like Proud Boys because they are doing actual, physical violence and are organized expressly for that purpose.
I see actual violence in Portland, Seattle, Dallas, St. Louis, Oakland, etc. Actual violence from the riots. Actual violence as in people dead.
And left wing groups like Antifa and BLM are doing “actual, physical violence and in the case of Antifa are organized expressly for that purpose”. Don’t kid yourself.
Yep, lunacy on many fronts.
Yes, we agree. There’s lunacy and the shutting down of other’s views on many fronts. No side holds a monopoly on this.
I do not adhere to the notion that the ends justify the means and I’m opposed to violent protest. But I cannot disregard the fact that the mission of groups like Antifa is opposition to fascism, racial injustice, police violence, etc., while groups like the Proud Boys are hate groups that promote white supremacy, white nationalism, homophobia, etc. In other words, these organizations or movements are not equivalent in their raisons d’etre. Thus, the right’s “but what about …” responses to criticisms of hate groups draw false moral equivalences, and can reasonably be interpreted as tacit support of those hate groups’ underlying missions.
Antifa is just as fascist as any right radical group.
To quote Ronald Reagan: There you go again.
You are actually equating Dylan Roof, James Fields, Robert Bowers, and Kyle Rittenhouse with Michael Reinohl? He is dead, the others are or have faced actual charges. Who else in the cities you named?
And, no, I am tired of this. There is simply no comparison between Antifa as an organization and other groups around the US whom the FBI has directly named.
The false equivalency is overwhelming
It’s how he avoids taking responsibility.
You guys make me laugh, you try to make the case that ANTIFA is not so bad when we’ve all seen their violence and destruction on display for the last several months.
Not so bad or not as bad? I think there is a difference. We should admonish all violence that is not in self defense.
You see these scenes where people go looking for trouble and then they find it and someone gets hurt. Its all counter productive.
At the same time we should insist that law enforcement be carried out professionally, fairly and dispassionately. We should insist that the cops should not make things worse.
But there is a piece missing from your comment … linking it to antifa, particularly since antifa is not a cohesive group.
FBI:
Antifa is an ideology not a group, not a movement
Proud Boys is an “extremist group”
The FBI’s biggest concerns are that “nationalist” groups are not being taken as serious terrorist threats. Groups, movements, actors who act in the name or upon the impetus of these groups—these are the concern of our primary federal law enforcement agency.
To say this is not to support the tactics or goals of Antifa, but your false equivalency is just that. It is false.
I think we all know that’s crap.
Evidence please
“Evidence? We ain’t got no evidence. We don’t need no evidence. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ evidence!” (Paraphrase, with apologies to John Huston, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.)
That is what the Director of the FBI said Keith. Not me.
Here’s the ADL: https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/who-are-antifa
“The anti-fascist protest movement known as antifa …”
“These violent counter-protesters are often part of “antifa” (short for “antifascist”), a loose collection of groups, networks and individuals who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements. “
https://thepostmillennial.com/dhs-leaked-email-confirms-that-antifa-is-an-organized-group
Sorry, Keith. I read the email and it doesn’t say what you think it does. It’s limited to Portland and says the attacks on federal, state, and local facilities there are not opportunistic, but are organized based on Antifa and anarchist “ideologies.” If anything, the email supports the Trump-appointed FBI director’s statement that Antifa is an ideology, not a group or a movement.
Great. FBI’s sworn testimony now given the same evidence weight as a DHS leak.
So I am going to summarize where I am and leave it at that: Donald Trump panders to racists.
That’s pretty much it. That is independent of whether Antifa is a terrorist organization or not.
And what if they say, “thanks, but no thanks” regarding that request?
Who they?
I’m not sure – the ones Robb is referring to.
But you asked, “what if they say, “thanks, but no thanks”” What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense to me without understand it is that you would be talking about.
I think that Robb is the one who might want to explain this better.
But it seems to me that a lot of problems occur when one group demands that another group be silenced, as long as they’re within their right to free speech.
(They’re generally not “asking”.)
No, you said something for a reason. I want to understand what you said – because right now it makes no sense. What did you have in your mind when you typed the sentence, “what if they say, “thanks, but no thanks”
It’s already been explained, based upon Robb’s statement. I’d ask him what he meant by “asks that it be silenced” (and by whom, and what criteria).
Whenever I see a statement like that, I would question it.
And again, what consequences/actions does he have in mind, if “they” (whoever they are) deny that request?
By the way, I suspect that the premature editing cut-off might be occurring when others are submitting a comment simultaneously. (Just noticed that possibility.)
By definition anarchists can’t be in a group.
“Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement which is sceptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Anarchism calls for the abolition of the state which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful.”
‘I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” Groucho Marx.
Not sure how important this is (or how relevant), but I think they could meet the definition of a “group”.
One of the examples given is a “group of protesters”.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/group
Hot off the presses: “The Homeland Threat Assessment” 2020:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf
DVE=Domestic Violent Extremist—considered more dangerous than foreign terrorists. These are the people that Donald Trump refuses to condemn.