President Trump’s mealy-mouthed mutterings on the terrorism let loose in Charlottesville on Saturday are worthy of the hypocrite and instigator of hate that he has proved himself to be. Trump knows what was at work on those streets and who was behind it. As well he should. They are some of the same forces that helped to put him in the White House.
On hand giving the clan of white nationalists a verbal boost was former Ku Klux Klan leader and preeminent white nationalist David Duke. Just as the bigoted Duke was on hand on election night exclaiming on social media that Trump’s victory was “one of the most exciting nights of my life.” Duke tweeted at the time, “Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump.”
And Duke’s people — Trump’s people, also — were out in force in Charlottesville with their hate-filled minds, their guns, and a weaponized automobile.
That was your crowd down there in Old Virginia, Donald Trump.
They were speaking your language, vomiting your sentiments, acting out what animates you from within.
Don’t act as though you don’t know them. They believe and expect you are working to “take back America” for them, because you are of them, just as just they know — as do you — that they gave their all for you.
So why are any of us the least bit surprised that Trump’s devoted clan of white nationalists would be so emboldened as to brazenly emulate their klan forbears and take it to the streets? One of their own reached the White House, with their help. It’s enough to make an old Confederate proud, and a present-day white nationalist as arrogant, reckless and dangerous as can be.