A series of Republican members of Congress came out on Tuesday to say that white supremacists and neo-Nazis are bad. But the majority of them failed a simple test: they didn’t name Donald Trump.
These Republicans weren’t just randomly condemning white supremacists on a Tuesday afternoon because of something white supremacists did that Tuesday afternoon. The main KKK-Nazi action happened over the weekend, and denunciations of that activity itself would have and should have come then. Over the weekend. No, the reason Republicans felt moved on Tuesday afternoon to say, as House Speaker Paul Ryan did, that “White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity” is because Donald Trump, their party’s president, who has their support, stood up and said otherwise. But Ryan didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t say Trump’s name. He needed to be condemning Trump’s support of white supremacists, not just issuing a pro-forma “Nazis are bad” statement.
Ryan was joined in this particular hall of spineless shame by too many of his Republican colleagues.
- North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis: “When it comes to white supremacists & neo-nazis, there can be no equivocating: they’re propagators of hate and bigotry. Period.” Gosh, Thom, who equivocated?
- Indiana Sen. Todd Young: “This is simple: we must condemn and marginalize white supremacist groups, not encourage and embolden them.” Gosh, Todd, who encouraged and emboldened them?
- House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “Saturday’s violence and tragic loss of life was a direct consequence of the violent and hateful rhetoric and action from white supremacists in Charlottesville. Race-based supremacy movements have no place in our melting pot culture and do not reflect the ideals enshrined in our Constitution that treats and respects every American equally.” Again, Kevin Kevin Kevin. Why are you talking about Saturday on Tuesday? What happened on Tuesday to prompt this statement?
- Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Mike Coffman (R-CO) had similar things to say. And they failed to say the exact same thing.
Is it impossible to get this one right? No, plenty of Democrats did it. Just for instance:
- Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy: “Just stopped on roadside to read @POTUS remarks. I nearly threw up. An American President offering a defense of white supremicists. My god.”
- Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden: “Off prompter and in his own words, the president gives comfort to white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Absolutely horrifying.”
But okay, fine, maybe Republicans aren’t going to say “I nearly threw up” or “absolutely horrifying,” so is there no way for them to name Donald Trump’s role in prompting their anti-Nazi statements Tuesday? Yes. Yes, there is, and Sen. John McCain did it: “There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so.”
Was that really so hard? That’s what Paul Ryan and Thom Tillis and Todd Young and Kevin McCarthy and Mike Coffman and Steve Scalise need to be doing. On Tuesday, it wasn’t just about the KKK and neo-Nazis and violence. It was about Donald Trump drawing moral equivalency between racists and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry. It was about Donald Trump defending the KKK and neo-Nazis and attacking anti-racist protesters as bad people. Yet most Republicans can’t bring themselves to say that, which means they aren’t even pretending to stand up to Trump, let alone really doing so.