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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Guardian view on Donald Trump and racism: a moral failure that shames America
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/aug/13/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trump-and-racism-a-moral-failure-that-shames-america?CMP=fb_usThe Guardian view on Donald Trump and racism: a moral failure that shames America
Editorial
No previous US president of modern times would have failed to condemn his countrys white nationalists. This one did
Sunday 13 August 2017 14.32 EDT
Last modified on Sunday 13 August 2017 17.00 EDT
snip//
Yet, while American racism has extremely deep and tenacious historical roots, without which the events in Virginia on Saturday cannot be properly understood, some large things have changed for the better over the past 60 or so years. Equal rights have been enforced. Equality has been embraced. America has elected a black president. It would be difficult to imagine any US president of this more recent period, of whatever party, who would not have responded to the neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville with anything except explicit condemnation and disgust. Any president, that is, until this one.
There is absolutely no moral equivalence between the fanatical white supremacists who rallied in the Virginia city on Saturday and the equality defenders who demonstrated peacefully against them, one of whom was rammed and killed by a speeding car allegedly driven by a man who had attended the neo-Nazi rally. The supremacists hate black people and Jews, and regard white people as superior. They talk portentously about blood, soil and the right to bear arms. They admire Hitler and give Nazi salutes. They fly the flags of the pro-slavery Confederacy the ostensible cause of their rallies this summer is Charlottesvilles decision, more than 150 years after the souths surrender, to remove a statue of Robert E Lee from a park. And one of them committed the sort of act that was rightly called terrorism when it occurred in Nice, Berlin and London.
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Yet, in his first response on Saturday, Mr Trump utterly failed in his primary duty to uphold equality and speak the truth about the racist violence that had taken place. Instead of placing the blame where it belonged, on the supremacists and Klansmen who triggered these events, and rather than stand up for the indivisibility of equality and tolerance before the law, Mr Trumps words were by turns slippery, banal and morally compromised. It was not true that the violence in Charlottesville came from many sides, as Mr Trump evasively said, before repeating his evasion. It is the head of states duty to stand up, explicitly and unequivocally, against racists and those who promote racial violence. Mr Trump was found wanting.
That would not have happened under Mr Bush, for all his faults. Nor is it true of top Republicans like Cory Gardner, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Orrin Hatch, none of them social liberals, who were all quick to call the supremacists out. Even the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who is few peoples idea of an ideological exemplar, condemned the racists. But Mr Trump did not.
It is hard to believe that the omission was an oversight and hard to treat it merely as a reminder of Mr Trumps inadequacy for the presidency. The concern is that Mr Trumps blathering was wholly deliberate until the White House got worried by the reaction. The worry is that he recognises that his election has empowered angry white people, including those who describe themselves as alt-right but who should be called what they are white supremacists. The hope is that this dishonest and morally shaming moment will define Mr Trump for sufficient decent Americans that he will not be trusted again. Sadly, the evidence of modern America gives too few grounds for optimism.
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