A real leader, with a testimony of American ideals, would have said, before the Charlottesville rally started: The supremacists’ message is condemnable, but we must respect their right to peacefully demonstrate in support of it. Instead, Trump waited until after to condemn violence, bigotry and hatred “on many sides” — implying a false moral equivalence.
Is using violence to stop a repugnant but lawful rally wrong, just like the supremacists’ use of violence against the counter-protesters? Yes. But both sides’ use of improper means does not make their aims and principles morally equivalent. Trump is not the first racist we have elected, but I suspect that most or all the other American presidents of the 20th and 21st centuries (Wilson being the most likely exception) would have recognized and said at least that much.
Shame on the man who now disgraces the people’s house. Shame on the politicians who laid the foundation for and then abetted that man’s co-option of the Party of Lincoln. Shame on this nation if we retain him for a second term in 2020. And shame on the people of this state if we again are found among the goats who help put him in office.
L. Rex Sears
Salt Lake City