While 7 in 10 Americans recently told pollsters that Donald Trump's behavior in office has fallen short of what they "expect from a president," state GOP officials across the country are apparently largely satisfied with Trump, even when asked specifically about his dreadful handling of the Charlottesville violence. The Atlantic writes:
In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, The Atlantic reached out to 146 Republican state party chairs and national committee members for reaction to Trump’s handling of the events. We asked each official two questions: Are you satisfied with the president’s response? And do you approve of his comment that there were “some very fine people” who marched alongside the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis?
The vast majority refused to comment on the record, or simply met the questions with silence. Of the 146 GOP officials contacted, just 22 offered full responses—and only seven expressed any kind of criticism or disagreement with Trump’s handling of the episode. (Those seven GOP leaders represent New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, North Dakota, Alaska, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.) The rest came to the president’s defense, either with statements of support or attempts at justification.
Just think about that—of 146 Republican officials, a mere 7 criticized Trump for equating white supremacists and neo-Nazis with the counter-protesters. That is absolutely frightening. And whether they simply didn't have the guts to speak up or actually agree with Trump (even scarier), they are complicit in his effort to normalize and coddle those hateful and murderous ideologies.
But this embrace of Trump's deplorable behavior isn't new. Republican officials have broadly stood with Trump after he bragged about being a "pussy" grabber, after he slandered an Indiana-born judge with Mexican lineage, even after he repeatedly and viciously targeted the parents of a Gold Star family that dared to question Trump’s fitness to be the commander in chief of our country and our troops. (Man, were they ever right.) Through it all, most Republicans have either defended or stood silent, so perhaps their support of him lauding the "very fine people" who made common cause with white supremacists and neo-Nazis shouldn't be a surprise. Republicans are all in and they own every piece of Trump's complete and total moral bankruptcy.
Of course, some officials, like Alabama committee member Paul Reynolds, went the extra mile with a full-throated defense of Trump, suggesting that some of those "Unite the Right" marchers "don't have a racist bone in their body."
“I’m not going to say anything at all in anyway negative toward the president because there were people that were there to preserve—” he said, before trailing off. “How do you know who is a Klansmen and who isn’t unless he has a robe? You don’t.”
Ah ... the old "heritage, not hate" trope—they just wanted to "preserve" the history of folks who fought for the right of white people to enslave other human beings. What could possibly be racist about that? Proving, once again, that you don't have to be a KKK member to perpetuate racism. If you show up at a rally and march alongside white supremacists in an effort to "preserve" memorials to the fight for human enslavement—sorry, that’s game's over.