Remember, there are not “two sides” or “both sides” to being a Nazi. There is only one side, the side of good, and you’d best be against them, the side of evil. They aren’t ALWAYS losers in Mom’s basement. They are bankers and businessmen and politicians. They are just like you, except they chose wrong.
It can happen here. Don’t let it.
NY Times:
A question has been posed in a puzzled whisper in many of the nation’s living rooms and newsrooms ever since Donald J. Trump’s triumph in this month’s presidential election: What, exactly, is white nationalism?...
Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck University in London, has spent years studying the ways that ethnicity intersects with politics. While most researchers in that field focus on ethnic minorities, Professor Kaufmann does the opposite: He studies the behavior of ethnic majorities, particularly whites in the United States and Britain.
White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation’s culture and public life.
So, like white supremacy, white nationalism places the interests of white people over those of other racial groups. White supremacists and white nationalists both believe that racial discrimination should be incorporated into law and policy.
Some will see the distinction between white nationalism and white supremacy as a semantic sleight of hand. But although many white supremacists are also white nationalists, and vice versa, Professor Kaufmann says the terms are not synonyms: White supremacy is based on a racist belief that white people are innately superior to people of other races; white nationalism is about maintaining political and economic dominance, not just a numerical majority or cultural hegemony.
It isn’t Charlottesville, I’m told, but it’s powerful.
John Harwood/CNBC:
The more obscure the president's actions, the likelier Republican leaders have been to remain quiet for fear of antagonizing his core supporters. But the graphic, deadly events this past weekend, and the president's response to them, threaten his party with the broader electorate that grows more diverse and more tolerant with every passing year.
Trump cast white supremacists and neo-Nazis carrying torches onto the University of Virginia campus as morally equivalent to counter-protesters advocating racial equality. His stance — a purposeful choice by a president who relishes singling out so many others for criticism — places him at odds with the values of the nation he was elected to serve.
That raises risks for elected officials who stand with Trump at a moment of legal, as well as political, jeopardy. It further complicates prospects for the Republican agenda on tax cuts, health care and other issues. It increases the possibility that Trump's presidency itself will be cut short.
We have shared values, even with political opposition, and Trump violates them. it will be his ruin.
Michael Gerson/WaPo (must read):
Trump babbles in the face of tragedy
If great words can heal and inspire, base words can corrupt. Trump has been delivering the poison of prejudice in small but increasing doses. In Charlottesville, the effect became fully evident. And the president had no intention of decisively repudiating his work.
What do we do with a president who is incapable or unwilling to perform his basic duties? What do we do when he is incapable of outrage at outrageous things? What do we do with a president who provides barely veiled cover for the darkest instincts of the human heart? These questions lead to the dead end of political realism — a hopeless recognition of limited options. But the questions intensify.
Susan Demas:
Pick a Side: There Is No Neutrality When it Comes to Nazis
White supremacists are emboldened. This weekend, they marched in Charlottesville, Va., a flashpoint because a confederate statue is slated to be removed. On Saturday, James Alex Fields, 20, allegedly plowed his car through anti-fascist protesters, killing one and leaving 19 injured. Two police officers were also killed in a helicopter crash.
The president went on TV after the tragedy and pundits expected him to condemn white supremacist violence. He didn’t. Instead, he blamed bigotry and violence “on many sides,” and weirdly brought up former President Obama. Needless to say, the neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, was elated and announced Trump was on their side (“He loves us all.”)
Sarah Posner and David Niewert/Mother Jones:
How Trump Took Hate Groups Mainstream
The full story of his connection with far-right extremists.
“I urge all readers of this site to do whatever they can to make Donald Trump President,” wrote Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, 12 days later. Anglin, a 32-year-old skinhead who wears an Aryan “Black Sun” tattoo on his chest and riffs about the inferior “biological nature” of black people, hailed Trump as “the only candidate who is even talking about anything at all that matters.”
This neo-Nazi seal of approval initially seemed like an aberration. But two months later, when Trump released his immigration policy, far-right extremists saw a clear signal that Trump understood their core anger and fear about America being taken over by minorities and foreigners. Trump’s plan to deport masses of undocumented immigrants and end birthright citizenship was radical and thrilling—”a revolution,” in the words of influential white nationalist author Kevin MacDonald, “to restore a White America.”
Trump’s move was a “game changer,” said MacDonald, a 70-year-old silver-haired former academic who edits the Occidental Observer, which the Anti-Defamation League calls “online anti-Semitism’s new voice.” Trump, he wrote, “is saying what White Americans have been actually thinking for a very long time.”
Megan Ming Francis/WaPo:
Donald Trump is no friend to black activists. They should engage him anyway
In the Trump era, some have suggested the BLM movement place more emphasis on local politics to sow the seeds of social change, as Nikkita Oliver, a BLM activist, did in her extraordinary campaign for mayor in Seattle this year. Local and state politics are undoubtedly important avenues for developing activist strategies, fundraising and recruiting new members.
But in our system of federalism, it is essential that local organizing continues to be connected to politics at the federal level. Over a century ago, the NAACP launched a crusade to protect black lives from lynching and mob violence during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. And even with a president hostile to civil rights, they found that mass protest could be the catalyzing force behind revolutionary change in the political and legal branches.
Politico:
At Netroots, liberal activists demand full-throttle approach to Trump-Russia ties
Progressives resist calls to de-emphasize focus on Russia probes
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. But understand that those running for office will do health care, jobs and, now, maybe intolerance. And don’t read the Politico piece above without reading this long thorough thought piece:
Quinta Jurecic/Lawfare:
Marriage of Convenience? Liberals and the Intelligence Community Come Together Over the Russia Connection
But even among the president’s most aggressive opponents on the left, the admiration is far from universal. As the Democratic Party and more radical lefties grapple with the new shape of politics under the Trump administration, one of the fiercest debates has focused on how to approach the Russia investigation: whether it’s an effective means by which to oppose the president and a worthwhile focus for the emotional energy of those adrift in Trump’s America or whether it’s not.
“The FBI Is Not Your Friend,” ran a headline in the far-left Jacobin magazine following Comey’s firing. “This is going to be the Democrats’ version of the Benghazi hearings,” wrote a despondent commenter on a forum for fans of the popular left-wing podcast, Chapo Trap House, the day Comey testified.
If the major story in the intellectual life of the nation over the past year has been the ideological chaos that has engulfed Americans to the right of center under Trump, the American left has its own story of chaos as well. There are a number of different American lefts. And while some have embraced the Russia investigation, others remain deeply skeptical of the investigation’s likelihood of success or even of its merit—sometimes to the point of active hostility. The story of the American left under Trump, as in the larger story, is one of bifurcation and polarization. It’s a story of a profound emerging divide over the role of patriotism and the intelligence community in the left’s political life. To put the matter simply, some on the left are actively revisiting their long-held distrust of the security organs of the American state; and some are rebelling against that rapprochement.
Stephen Hayes/Weekly Standard:
Despite—or perhaps because of—Trump’s weak disavowals in the past, white supremacists still think Trump is, at the very least, open to them. At the rally on Saturday afternoon, David Duke said: "We're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump." After Trump's remarks, Duke encouraged him to "take a good look in the mirror & remember it was white Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.”
Other white supremacists are convinced that President Trump is more than just open to them. The white supremacist Daily Stormer ran a liveblog of the Charlottesville rally and they positively celebrated Trump’s refusal to denounce them: “No condemnation at all. . . . When asked to condemn, [Trump] just walked out of the room . . . God bless him.”
President Trump built his reputation with tough talk and harsh condemnations people who earn his disapproval. That he refused to offer those things on Saturday is no accident.
It's no surprise, either.
Guardian:
Trump urged Americans to “love each other, respect each other and cherish our history and our future together. So important. We have to respect each other. Ideally, we have to love each other.”
However, Trump’s remarks met condemnation for being inadequate – not just from Democrats but many members of his own party as well.
The Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio was among those calling for a straightforward condemnation:
Conservative Senators know what to say even if Trump didn’t. Grassley, Hatch and Cruz were better on this than Trump. Bunch of RINO snowflakes, all of them, using domestic terrorism and white nationalism in their statements.
Dan Rodricks/Baltimore Sun:
Did anyone expect President Donald J. Trump to wax eloquent and consoling with regard to Charlottesville? Did we really think he would condemn the torch-bearing white supremacists who assembled there? Do a majority of Americans count on Trump to provide wisdom, guidance and inspiration in times of trouble?
No. No. And no.
Handed an opportunity to shock us with a display of principled leadership, Trump on Saturday could have distanced himself from the alt-right and white nationalists he empowered with his “Make America Great Again” campaign. But he did not come close to that. He never uttered any of the descriptors we use for people who carry Confederate flags and chant, “Jews will not replace us.”
Instead, he blamed “many sides” for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville.