(01-10-2020 05:29 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

Quote:“I am not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Good grief.

OK. Let's start with an honest assessment. There are a lot of pictures and videos out there. What percentage of the protesters do you honestly believe were peaceful protesters just there to protest the removal of the statue? I haven't seen any, but I haven't looked at every pictures and video. Your defense only works if there actually was someone there on the right other than the neo-Nazi / white nationalist types.

Vox notes:

Quote:Unite the Right was explicitly organized and branded as a far-right, racist, and white supremacist event by far-right racist white supremacists. This was clear for months before the march actually occurred. So by casting the rally instead as a sort of spontaneous outpouring from Confederate statue enthusiasts, Trump is rewriting history.

Quote:So by August 2017, when the Unite the Right rally was scheduled to take place, it was fairly clear that the organizers behind the rallies on behalf of keeping the Lee statue in place had a very specific ideological bent. That was clear in a police affidavit detailing who was expected at Unite the Right — including roughly 250 to 500 Klansmen and more than 150 “Alt-Knights,” the military division of the Proud Boys.

Quote:The affiliations of the organizers were also clear. Jason Kessler, a “pro-white” activist, filed the permits for the rally.

On a radio show before the event, Kessler said, “the number one thing is I want to destigmatize Pro-White advocacy. … I want a huge, huge crowd, and that’s what we’re going to have, to come out and support not just the Lee monument but also white people in general, because it is our race which is under attack.”

Lovely image promoting the event on Facebook:



From Roanoke Times editorial:

Quote:Here’s where the problem begins. In an academic sense, Trump is right that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis” because there was a bewildering taxonomy of far-right groups present. Some have counted as many as 17 different groups present — some actual Nazis, some Klansmen and some from lots of other groups lesser-known to the general public but well-known to those who monitor fringe groups. The neo-Nazis get the attention because we all recognize a swastika but not the more obscure symbols that were on display. However, it’s possible to lump all these fringe groups together under the heading of “white supremacists” or “white nationalists.” Academics might draw some nuanced ideological difference between the “Stormer Book Club” and the “Loyal White Knights” and “Identity Evropa” but for our purposes, they’re all part of the same foul movement.

Quote:Here’s where Trump is fundamentally wrong. He seems to think that the rally consisted of some neo-Nazis over here and some others over there who were simply there to protest the plans to move the Lee statue. That is simply not true. This was not some protest organized by history buffs who think that the statue should stay because that’s one way for us to understand the past. This was always an event organized by white nationalists. The history-minded people who genuinely believe we shouldn’t take down Confederate statues because their presence can be informative about an uncomfortable past were never part of this event — and had the good sense to stay far, far, far away. Anyone who showed up to march was knowingly joining a white supremacist rally.

So when Trump says of the rally that “there were very fine people on both sides,” he may think there were some fine people on the pro-statue side in Charlottesville that day, but there weren’t. There were only white supremacists.

So the problem with your defense is that there were not very fine people on both sides. One side was all bad people. The other side had a few bad people and a lot of peaceful counter-protesters.


Also, from Trump earlier in the same press conference where he doesn't try to qualify his remarks:

Quote:I will tell you something. I watched those very closely -- much more closely than you people watched it. And you have -- you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now. You had a group -- you had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent.

Later:

Quote:Reporter: "Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?"

Trump: "I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs -- and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.

"But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left -- you just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.

Reporter: (Inaudible) "… both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the --"

Trump: "Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides -- I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say."