At the White House on Monday, Donald Trump finally, and apparently reluctantly, addressed the racist cause of the violence that led to three deaths during the so-called Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rather than reassuring his divided nation and party, rather than offering comfort to the bereaved, the President's statement served to confirm the worst fears for his presidency rather than the greatest hopes.
Saturday's rally was attended by white supremacists and neo-Nazis protesting against the removal of Confederate statues. One man was filmed marching with a Nazi salute, yelling "Heil Trump" to onlookers. Scuffles with counter-demonstrators had ended by the time a young man with far-right affiliations drove into a crowd of those counter-demonstrators, killing a woman.
Donald Trump speaks out against white supremacists on Monday. He had ignored calls to do so on Sunday.Credit: Bloomberg
In a statement on Saturday, the President failed to address the overt racism of the event, and drew a false equivalency between the opposing groups, decrying the violence "on many sides". He called upon Americans to "cherish our history". This was rightly read as a sympathetic signal to those who supported the Confederate monuments. "No condemnation at all," wrote the co-founder of one neo-Nazi website. "Really, really good. God bless him."
On Sunday Mr Trump ignored calls from across the political spectrum to condemn the racist groups. Finally on Monday he made a statement in which he first celebrated his economic achievements, before adding: "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."
We should perhaps not be surprised that Mr Trump is a reluctant critic of the far right. He led the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not an American. He launched his campaign declaring that Mexicans were rapists and he would build a wall to keep them out. For a long time he refused to disavow the endorsement of Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
More broadly, support for Mr Trump is plummeting. The most recent Gallop poll shows an approval rating of just 34 per cent.
This is a dangerous situation for the US and the world, because he appears determined to shape his rhetoric for a shrinking audience of die-hard supporters to the exclusion not only of minorities and opponents, but even more moderate Republicans. In this unstable environment, America now confronts the absurd possibility of a government shutdown and a default on US debt in the coming weeks, despite Republicans' full control of government.
Worse, this needless strife comes as Mr Trump must seek to secure peace on the Korean peninsula, a tough task he appears to be ill-equipped for and uninterested in.
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