Just before I checked out of my room at the Hyatt Regency after Netroots Nation I turned on CNN and saw a real live living zombie in action. It was chilling. He said words, he made claims, but he was completely, totally emotionless. Absolute flatline. He had no emotive connection to the statements he was making. I don’t know what protein bacta tank they grow these dead-eyed clones in, but they really need to use more soylent green.
Seriously.
While House Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert claimed that the Precious Dear Leader-in-Chief’s statement yesterday where he condemned violence “on all sides” without ever mentioning “white supremacy” or “white nationalism” or “Nazis” was truly inspiring. When of course it wasn’t, but he still had to say it.
It frankly took Jake Tapper 14 full minutes to get this soulless White Walker to finally admit that “White Supremacy is bad, mkay?” Please note how his eyes go into a locked semi-roll as Tapper is talking.
As Talking Points Memo highlighted at one point after Tapper noted the positive reaction to Trump’s statement from the Daily Stormer and this Cretinous Bog Wompus actually argued that Trump’s lack of saying the words “White Supremacist” denied them… uh.. “Dignity”.
“The President not only condemned the violence, and stood up at a time and a moment when calm was necessary, and didn’t dignify the names of these groups of people, but rather addressed the fundamental issue,” Bossert said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Trump on Saturday did not remark on the nature of the rally but called the clashes an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” and called for Americans to “love each other.”
“What you need to focus on is the rest of his statement,” Bossert said.
He called Trump’s comments about love “a fundamental assault on the very nature of the hatred that we’re seeing here.”
We have focused on the statement, which quite clearly attempted to place equal blame on the counter-protestors — including the injured and killed such as Heather Heyer — as it did on those who actually did show up in Hilbilly Riot Gear chanting Nazi slogans all in order to protest the removal of statue dedicated to an American traitor — Robert E. Lee.
And there was this section in the discussion where Tapper really hammered Herr Zombie on his false equivalence between the Neo-Nazis and the Anti-Neo-Nazis.
“I’m sure there were good people,” [Bossert] insisted, “that had various opinions on the maintenance or the removal of the statue. But what they found when they showed up were groups showed up from both sides looking for trouble, dressed in riot gear, prepared for violence.”
“How many people did the counter-protesters kill yesterday, Mr. Bossert?” Tapper quipped.
Without answering the question, Bossert observed that “one death is too many.”
“The victim was a counter-protester!” Tapper interrupted.
“Hold on, Jake!” Bossert exclaimed. “I don’t for one moment and I won’t allow you for one second to put me in a position of being an apologist for somebody who is now a charged murderer.”
“You just decried both sides,” Tapper said, raising his voice. “Here we have a situation, Mr. Bossert, where neo-nazis, the Klan, Alt-Right and others went to Charlottesville, Virginia chanting antisemitic, anti-African-American and other racist slogans, provoking the people of Charlottesville, Virginia, making them feel intimidated. Yes, violence did break out. But one person was killed by one of these Alt-Right-Klan-Nazi protesters.”
So that was some good work by Jake, but Zombie-man was unfazed continuing to claim that what Trump said was “really awesome”, “healing” and “inspire-y.”
So we have to notice the part of what Trump did say, besides not offering White Supremacist any “Dignity” and blaming the victims for being victimized was that he also said we need to “Cherish Our Heritage.” Which in the South is somewhat troubling.
Let’s review shall we?
Trump: We condemn in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hated, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. 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. It has no place in America.
What “it” exactly is he talking about? Which “sides?” Is he talking about Ferguson as if it were exactly the same as Charlottesville? There was only one violent side in Charlottesville — the Nazis. Everyone else, the Not Nazis, were their targets and victims.
Trump: What is vital now is the we have a swift restoration of law and order. and the protection of innocent lives. No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society. And no child should ever be afraid to go outside and play. Or be with their parents, and have a good time.
Besides the fact this makes me wonder what exactly non-citizens can expect in terms of being afraid for their “safety and security” from this portion of the statement it seems like he’s not talking about the violence of Alt-Nazis in Charlottesville, this section sounds like he’s talking about the shootings in Chicago and trying to use this event as a way to justify more harsh and radical police efforts against minorities, not against those who would attack minorities and those who support them like Heather Heyer.
And speaking of police efforts as we now know that Charlottesville Police stood on the sidelines while the violence erupted after receiving a stand down order and fled.
“But when the tear gas started to fly, thrown by protesters, the police themselves began to evacuate then. I asked the guy who was in charge, “Where you going?” He said, “We’re leaving. It’s too dangerous.” They had a chance to nip this thing in the bud and they chose not to.“
So when Trump says we need the “restoration of law and order” Charlottesville police had their chance to do exactly that and when met with a small but well prepared force of Nazis — they turned tail and ran — abandoning their post and allowing for the violence to continue and escalate. How about paying a little attention to that “side” of things?
Trump: I just got off the phone with the Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe and we agreed that the hate and division must stop. And must stop, right now. We have to come together as Americans with love for our Nation. And true affection, and truly I say this so strongly, true affection for each other.
Aw, that’s very cute — but does he mean we should have so much affection that we grab each other by the pussy? Just wondering.
After making that lovely point: the infomercial began.
Our country is doing so well in many ways, we have record, absolute record employment. We have unemployment the lowest it’s been in almost 17 years.
Yes, that would be a whopping .03% greater than the lowest level of unemployment reached by Barack Obama in November of 2016, after he had previously brought it down by 5.0% during his Presidency. Great job there with the rounding error there Slick.
We have companies pouring our companies Foxconn and car companies, and so many others. There coming back tour country. Were renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country and great for the American worker. There are so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I watch Charlottesville to me it’s very, very sad.
I want to salute the great work of the state and local police in Virginia. Incredible people, law enforcement, incredible people. And also the National Guard who’ve really been working smart and working hard. They’ve been doing a terrific job. Federal authorities are also providing tremendous support to the governor, he thanked me for that. We are here to provide what ever assistance is needed, we are ready willing and able.
Above all else we must remember this truth: no matter our color, creed, or our political party we are all Americans first . We love our country, we love our God, we love our flag, we’re proud of our country, we’re proud of who we are. So we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville. And we want to study it. And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country where things like this can happen.
Did anyone else just feel a real cold chill run through their spine?
My administration is restoring the sacred bonds of loyalty between this nation and it’s citizens. But our citizens must also restore the bonds of trust and loyalty between one another. We must 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.
So this is what Mr. Bossert is talking about. Trump said we should love one another, and that we should “cherish our history” which happens to include people like Bob Lee who fought and killed his fellow Americans to maintain a system of a couple centuries of racial kidnapping, torture, murder, rape, economic and physical terrorism, segregation, exclusion, intimidation, harassment and psychological violence — for profit.
That is in fact that history that the Alt-Nazis do cherish. That is indeed the future that they expect and anticipate from YOU, Mr. Trump and this statement didn’t do anything to persuade them of anything different.
As the official start of the “Unite the Right” rally kicked off in Charlottesville, Virginia, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said the gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and far-right individuals pointed to a future fulfillment of President Donald Trump’s “promises.”
So yeah, all that happened. And then the Zombie went on CNN and 14 minutes into his screed, this finally happened.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Bossert to give his own response to the violence.
“You on this show today have said that you condemn groups and condemn actions and condemn bigotry, but I haven’t heard you say, ‘I condemn white supremacists. I condemn neo-Nazis. I condemn the alt-right.’ I haven’t heard that,” he said.
“I think you’ve belabored it,” Bossert fired back. “So let me say, I condemn white supremacists and racists and white Nazi groups and all the other groups that espouse this kind of hatred and exclusion.”
Now of course he’d just said a few minutes later that it would be wrong to “dignify” these exactly groups and that was the reason that Trump didn’t name them specifically. But then again Trump has a long history of attacking people for not naming violent groups, now doesn’t he?
So yeah, we all know that Trump simply will never say the words “Radical White Terrorism” because then he’d be insulting the core of his base whom many studies indicate voted for him not for their own economic security but largely because of racial anxiety.
Our analysis shows Trump accelerated a realignment in the electorate around racism, across several different measures of racial animus—and that it helped him win. By contrast, we found little evidence to suggest individual economic distress benefited Trump. The American political system is sorting so that racial progressivism and economic progressivism are aligned in the Democratic Party and racial conservatism and economic conservatism are aligned in the Republican Party.
And now those racist chickens have begun coming home to roost just as the Mayor of Charlottesville stated yesterday.
“I don’t want to make this too much about Donald Trump,” Signer said. “We have a lot of grieving, a lot of work to do as a city and as a country.”
“But,” he continued, “he should look in the mirror. I mean, he made a choice in his presidential campaign, the folks around with him, to go right to the gutter, to play on our worst prejudices.”
“I think you are seeing a direct line from what happened here this weekend to those choices,” Signer said.
Yep.
And to be fair, Trump did finally say “White Supremacy is bad, mkay?” it just took him about 48 hours, not just 18 minutes of being harangued by Jake Tapper.
President Donald Trump said Monday that he condemned the outbreak of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. He explicitly denounced the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists and neo-Nazis, describing them as repugnant.
“To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s violence… justice will be delivered,” the president said.
Trump called the events in Charlottesville an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence.”
That's something. He still hasn’t said “Radical White Terrorism” though. And he did go after a Black CEO in the meantime, so one step forward, two steps back?