Donald Trump condemned for silence on white supremacist ‘terrorism’
DONALD Trump is being lashed from all corners over his “toxic failure to lead”. Even an ex KKK leader has accused him of betrayal.
THE White House is under siege as Donald Trump faces renewed criticism over his response to a white nationalist rally in Virginia that turned deadly.
Mr Trump is being lashed from all corners, including the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who has accused him of betrayal.
“I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists,” ex-Imperial Wizard David Duke told the president in a Twitter blast following the Charlottesville carnage.
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and 30 others were injured after a suspected neo-nazi drove a car through a crowd of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville.
Mr Trump condemned the violence, but has been roundly criticised for waiting too long to address it and then failing to explicitly condemn the “white supremacist” marchers behind the atrocity.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides,” Mr Trump said.
“It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time.”
CNN commentator Peniel Joseph said the response “spotlighted Trump’s toxic failure to lead”, while the New York Times columnist Erick Woods-Erickson said Trump got it wrong.
“This president is our president. He is the president of the United States. But as we become less united as a nation, he seems unwilling or unable to speak with conviction and moral clarity. We will all be worse off for it.”
Even the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump directly called out the white supremacists.
1:2 There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) August 13, 2017
Mr Duke, a Louisiana politician who reportedly founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1974, told the rally it was a “turning point” for America, and protesters would “fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.”
So, after decades of White Americans being targeted for discriminated & anti-White hatred, we come together as a people, and you attack us? https://t.co/Rkfs7O2Ykr
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 12, 2017
MOTHER SPEAKS OUT
Meanwhile, the mother of the man allegedly behind the attack has spoken out and said she thought her son was attending a rally for Mr Trump.
Police charged James Alex Fields Jr, 20, with second-degree murder and other counts after a silver Dodge Challenger they say he was driving barrelled through a crowd of counter-protesters.
Samantha Bloom told the Associated Press she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn’t know it was in support of white supremacists.
“I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump’s not a white supremacist,” Ms Bloom said.
“I just knew he was going to a rally. I mean, I try to stay out of his political views.”
It comes as Fields was photographed hours earlier carrying the emblem of one of the hate groups that organised the “take America back” campaign.
Vanguard America denied any association with the suspect as a separate hate group that organised the initial rally pledged on social media to organise future events that would be “bigger than Charlottesville”.
In a photo taken by the New York Daily News, Fields, who recently moved to Ohio from Kentucky, stands with a handful of men, all dressed similarly in the Vanguard America uniform of khakis and white polo shirts.
The men hold white shields with a black-and-white logo of two axes.
The Confederate statue of Robert E Lee is in the background. The Daily News said the photo was taken about 10:30am. Charlottesville officials say Fields crashed his car into the crowd at 1:42pm.
The Anti-Defamation League said it had handed out the shields “to anyone in attendance who wanted them”, and denied Fields was a member.
In blog posts that appeared after the violence, the Daily Stormer, a leading white nationalist website that promoted the Charlottesville event, pledged to hold more events “soon”.
“We are going to start doing this non-stop,” the post said. “We are going to go bigger than Charlottesville. We are going to go huge.”
It also earlier praised Mr Trump’s comments.
“Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him,” it read.
Daily Stormer: "We are now at war" & "Trump comments were good...no condemnation at all" https://t.co/Avl6RSvOR1 pic.twitter.com/A0LpGZEHTE
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) August 13, 2017
‘UNDER SIEGE’
The White House released a statement more than 36 hours after the protests began condemning the white supremacists behind the violence.
According to the New York Times, the statement was emailed to journalists in Mr Trump’s press pool and was attributed to an unnamed spokesperson and not the president himself.
“The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred. Of course that includes white supremacists, K.K.K., neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together,” the White House statement said.
Both Democrats and Republicans criticised the president for failing to call out white supremacy and racially-motivated hate by name.
Republican Senator Cory Gardner said the event was terrorism and needed to be called exactly that.
Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism. https://t.co/PaPNiPPAoW
— Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) August 12, 2017
US Senator Marco Rubio also said the president needed to define the events as “domestic terrorism” at the hands of white supremacists.
Trump critic and controversial filmmaker Michael Moore went even further and accused the president of inciting the violence.
In a Facebook post, Moore wrote: “To the White Leader in the White House. There is not bigotry all on sides. There is only one side where the hate lies — yours. You are the one who ran a campaign of hate speech and racism. You are the inciter of this violence. And we are the ones who are going to peacefully and non-violently remove you from power. Mark my words.”
CONDEMNATION GROWS
In a stinging editorial, Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak writes that while white supremacists have always been part of the US way of life.
But Dvorak argues Trump has inflamed the situation, writing: “President Trump lit every one of those torches in Charlottesville” with the mob flaming torches and shouting “heil Trump”.
She argues Trump’s refusal to take a moral stand on hatred and intimidation during his campaign and in his first six months in office has only helped haters love him for it.
Broadcaster CNN took aim at Mr Trump’s initial statement with editor-at-large Chris Cillizza calling it “incredibly unpresidential”.
“It’s hard to imagine a less presidential statement in a time in which the country looks to its elected leader to stand up against intolerance and hatred,” he writes.
Cillizza said the low ebb was Mr Trump’s emphasis “on many sides” because he writes that would imply it was coming from more than one group.
“Arguing that ‘both sides do it’ deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this “Unite the Right” rally. These people are bigots. They are hate-filled,” he writes.
— with AP
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