I know all my fans out here have been waiting with bated breath for me to issue a major statement on the Charlottesville mess (other than tossing a few jabs at the dunce who has decided to show up here in the last few days), but I've frankly been waiting to see how the facts shake out before rendering judgment. Well, I've waited long enough, and I'm ready to render judgment.
First, Trump's response was poor in the context of how he normally behaves. If he was slow to condemn in other contexts, then I'd defend him here. However, he's usually very quick to condemn and very quick to "name names." Keep in mind that he torched Obama and HRC for failing to condemn radical Islamic terror. He should have immediately condemned the entire alt-Right and without any equivocation or reservation just as he would condemn Islamic terrorists. They're very bad hombres.
Second, as usual the media is hysterical and presenting several blatantly fraudulent narratives. And of course, their double standards and hypocrisy are on full display, and there's no doubt that there was nothing Trump could have said or done to please them or score any points with them.
- Many are claiming that Trump is condoning the alt-Right by pointing out that there was violence on both sides. That's garbage. Pointing that out doesn't excuse the violence of the alt-Right, and it doesn't make blame equally shared. It is possible and intellectually honest to say the alt-Right is terrible and acted worse (since they killed somebody) while still saying the the opposition was out of line as well.
- I've heard some claim that Trump said that there are "good people" in the neo-Nazi movement. That is not at all what he said. He said that there were some good people at the demonstration who weren't neo-Nazis, and that's almost surely true. In fact, he also said there were good people on the other side who were nonviolent - also true.
- There's a push to make anyone who supports the Confederate symbols into neo-Nazis, and that's BS. I've argued with Htown77 about removing Confederate symbols. He's very wrong, but he's not a neo-Nazi. Furthermore, I've argued this issue with probably a hundred other people who agree with him. Literally not one is a neo-Nazi or even remotely sympathetic to them.
- There's a push to say that there's an inherent goodness to being opposed to white supremacists or Nazis. Has anybody ever heard of Josef Stalin? Sometimes two bad guys are fighting each other. Antifa is wrong and very evil both because of their methods and their ideology. The fact that they happen to oppose Nazism doesn't make them good or even less bad any more than the Nazi opposition to communism made them good or less bad. If either side - alt-Right or Antifa actually gained real political power in the United States, the results would be horrific and disastrous. They are indeed both terrible, and we should marginalize and de-legitimize both.
Third, the reluctance of some on the Right (including Trump) to disassociate from the alt-Right is troubling. There is a push to lump mainstream conservatism with the alt-Right, and that needs to be shutdown. That push comes from two sources - liberals who want to taint mainstream conservatism with the alt-Right and alt-Righters who want to appear to be a bigger and more important political movement than they actually are.
The push is enabled by the association of conservatism with the political Right. We need to combat that. The Left-Right spectrum is a product of European politics and doesn't fit American politics, because it doesn't leave a place for limited government and federalism, which is what mainstream conservatism is supposed to be about. Instead, it leaves different brands of authoritarianism on both sides. (By the way, that's for good reason. European states by and large aren't founded on principles of limited government.) The alt-Right fits nicely into the European Left-Right spectrum, as does the American Left. However, American conservatism does not, and we should stop pretending that it does. Accordingly, the difference between a mainstream conservative and an alt-Righter isn't a matter of degree but of fundamental principles and philosophy.
Fourth, just because most people the Left calls racists aren't doesn't mean that none of them are. The alt-Right people are true racists. Listen to a guy like Richard Spencer talk. He believes that European ethnicity is inseparable from and essential to Western civilization. To him, someone from the Far East or Africa can't be a legitimate Westerner no matter what he does - even if he embraces free markets and private property rights, practices Judeo-Christian ethics, believes in liberal democracy, etc. Well, that is racism, and it is dangerous, and we should be willing to label it as such without hesitation.
Fifth, I've heard several self-serving liberal commentators dismiss the claim that Leftist identity politics promote white nationalism, and these people are dangerously wrong. It absolutely does. You can't promote some forms of ethnic nationalism and separatism without promoting all forms. Why? Because eventually the group whose nationalism you want to suppress will figure out what the hell your doing and engage in nationalism as a matter of self-defense and self-preservation. And no, it's not ignorant paranoia on their part. It's human nature.
Finally, if you are a person who fears the rise of neo-Nazism, then you should oppose recreating the conditions that made normal people receptive to old Nazism. Normal people want order so they can live their lives in peace. One of Hitler's biggest selling points was that he was going to restore order by stopping the communist revolutionaries in Germany who were committing acts of violence, destroying property, and assaulting people like thugs. In other words, they were acting like Antifa but on a bigger scale. Right now you have President Trump, but if these violent nut groups amp it up further, then in ten years, you might have President Richard Spencer, who would make Trump look like Nelson Mandela. And again, this doesn't excuse or mitigate the alt-Right. Their violent acts do the same sort of thing in reverse. It's all dangerous, and it all needs to stop.
