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Felicia Sonmez
National Journalist in the Washington Post Political Press Team
First, Joe Biden's campaign announcement video, which highlights President Trump's commentary on "outstanding personalities from both sides," about the 2017 Charlottesville White Nationalist Rally, which left one against -protestor dead.
Then Trump dug, claiming that he was referring not to the so-called neo-Nazi walkers, but to those who had opposed the kidnapping of the statue of the "great" Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Less than 24 hours later, another act of hate crime by the authorities was Saturday's shooting in a synagogue in Poway, California, in which one gunman killed one person and wounded three others.
These events pushed the rising tide of white nationalism to the forefront of the 2020 presidential campaign, placing Trump on the defensive and even pushing some Republicans to admit that the president was taking a political risk by continuing to defend his comments in Charlottesville.
"The treatment of the president by Charlottesville was not one of the best moments of his tenure," said Republican strategist Ryan Williams. "He should not take Joe Biden's bait and challenge this controversy again."
In response to the shooting at Poway Synagogue, Trump denounced anti-Semitism and hate crimes at the start of his rally on Saturday night in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In a statement, White House spokesman Judd Deere reiterated that his entire administration "has and will continue to condemn racism, fanaticism and all forms of violence."
President Trump speaks at a Make America Great Again rally Saturday in Green Bay, Wisconsin (Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)
And Trump's advisers claim that the president's words about Charlottesville were – in the words of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday – "damn close to perfection".
"All white supremacy, all neo-Nazis, all anti-Christians, all anti-Semitists and all anti-Muslim activities should be condemned," said Conway on "the state of the Union," saying that Trump's words were "twisted for many". years for political purposes. "
Nevertheless, the rise of white nationalist violence during Trump's term begins to be a problem as the president turns his attention to his reelection campaign.
According to the latest annual report of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has long followed extremist activity, 39 of the 50 extremist-related murders denounced by the group in 2018 were committed by white supremacists, starting from 2017, when the supremacists were responsible for 18 of the 34 crimes of this type.
Trump had previously downplayed the threat posed by white nationalism. After an armed man killed 49 Muslims in two consecutive attacks at a mosque in New Zealand, a reporter asked Trump about white nationalists being a growing threat in the world. "I do not do it, really," Trump replied. "I think it's a small group of people who have very, very serious problems."
Trump also has a long history of anti-Muslim remarks, particularly in 2015 that he would consider "strongly closing the mosques in the United States, refusing to rule out the creation of a national registry of Muslims and declaring at From an interview with CNN in 2016: "I think Islam hates us. "
Trump's remarks in response to Biden's video prompted the call of the ADL and other people to explain more about condemning what was wrong. actually happened in Charlottesville, where white supremacists waved torches and chanted anti-Semitic slogans such as "The Jews will not replace". we."
"We need our leaders to lead, to be clear and consistent in calling hatred when that happens and to recognize that there is a dividing line between Charlottesville and Pittsburgh and Poway," said the chief executive of ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt. "We know that extremists feel emboldened because they say so. They communicate a sense of energy and optimism in their bulletin boards and their subreddits, and this should be alarming for all of us. "
Trump has been speaking to Charlottesville twice in recent days – once during an exchange with reporters outside the White House and another time in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin. Both times, he did not raise the issue until he was questioned and answered specific questions.
"Many of these people came from the University of Virginia; they came from all over the neighborhood and the region – they just wanted to protest that they wanted to bring down the statue of Robert E. Lee, "Trump told Levin. "There were a lot of good people in this group. And they protested against the dismantling of statues. . . . And you also had very bad people in each group. "
A White House official, speaking under the guise of anonymity to discuss internal thinking, said Trump was committed to fighting white supremacy and all forms of violence – but that he did not wish to revive his response to Charlottesville and that it was unlikely that he would make a speech on the subject. .
The Democrats took Sunday on Trump's remarks about Lee, and the majority whip in the House, James E. Clyburn (DS.C.), ironically noted that Trump "had always said that" I'm not sure about it. he hated the losers ".
"The fact is that Robert E. Lee was a great tactician – was not a great person," said Clyburn on ABC News's "This Week" show. "Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and a brutal slave master, luckily he lost that war, and I find it quite interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser." He always said that He loathed the losers Robert E. Lee was a loser.
When asked if Biden was right to focus on Charlottesville in his announcement video, Clyburn answered "Absolutely".
"I think that's the heart of this campaign. It will be about who can bring this country together, "he said.
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Trump "does not need to fight for anything" with Biden on the issue and that his record shows he does not support white supremacists.
"So many people in this country think that anti-Semitism started in this country on January 21, 2017," said Brooks, referring to Trump's first full day of work.
"In fact, we have a very serious problem of anti-Semitism in the United States. He existed before Donald Trump. It will exist after Donald Trump. . . . Putting it in one way or another at the door of this president is unfair and offensive, "he said.
Not everyone, however, heard the condemnation in Trump's explanation of his remarks in Charlottesville.
Jonathan M. Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University, was discussing his recently published book, "Dying Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Kills the Heart of the World". "America" and the Prose Bookstore in northwestern Washington on Saturday, as a handful of self-proclaimed white nationalists came in and disrupted the event.
Metzl said that "although there will always be people with horrible and racist views," these feelings have generally been widely condemned – but Trump's remarks on Charlottesville have blurred the tracks.
"Part of what was scary was that this was happening and that the usual checks and balances could or could not be there, because the president doubled his comments on Charlottesville. . . . Historically, it's the role of the government, "he said. "And we have a very different government right now."
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