Consider this an expansion to the Charlottesville episode on The Stuff & Junk Show.
https://whowhatwhereswhy.com/stuffjunk/2017/8/14/charlottesville
...Most people just want Trump to completely denounce the KKK, the neo-nazi, and the white supremacists. That’s what people are waiting for. It’s that simple. Seems pretty easy to me to denounce groups that are openly racist. Why won’t he do it? It only makes him look like he is afraid to offend those racist groups because he doesn’t want to alienate a voting party. Just another political tactic, made by a man who originally claimed he wasn’t going to be a politician.
On the 8/14 presser, Trump denounced racism and violence, which is something we all can agree on. He should have stopped talking there. We would all have been happy. However, like I pointed out on the podcast, by saying the word “including…,” he was clever enough to protect himself from completely denouncing the KKK, neo-nazi, and white supremacists (proven on Tuesday). So he was apparently just denouncing the racist and violent ones? Yeah, so were we all. The KKK, neo-nazi, and the white-supremacists represents racism already, so isn’t that enough to denounce them? They were on their way to rot in the fringes. They should have continued to be ridiculed straight into the history books. Suddenly though, here they are on the rise again, all because they took Trump’s saying MAGA as meaning that he is going to Make America WHITE Again. They were inadvertently given legitimacy by the leader of a nation.
If Trump doesn’t denounce those racist groups, it only encourages them to do more of these rallies. It’s true that they can legally get permits to do so; heck Satan worshippers can get permits for rallies if they wanted to, but the Unite-The-Right movement shouldn’t go into their rallies chanting Nazi slogans like “Jews will not replace us” or “Blood and Soil” and have a small armed militia to watch over them. Are they there to protect a statue, or to show Nazi pride? Freedom of speech and all sure, but that’s like yelling FIRE in a movie theater. They want to make a stand for what they believe in, but they also want to intimidate and antagonize the opposite side. They want to be martyrs for their cause. They welcome and expect violence.
On that note, the AntiFascists are getting out of control as well, as I said on the podcast. They have decided that the peace and diplomacy that MLK has preached is not really working, as racism and prejudice is still disappointingly prevalent, and are only being passed on to a younger generation. They were also probably egged on by an older generation of people who criticized Millennials for not being proactive and are too comfortable in life to get their hands dirty. I guess they are showing us now aren’t they? “Sticks and Stones can break our bones, but words will never hurt us.” That should be updated, as words can really hurt. To be fair, although the current batch of AntiFa looks like they are mostly Millennials, the group has been around since the 1920s.
So basically the white supremacists are tired that they are being told that racism is wrong, and the AntiFascists are tired that those racists are still around and no one seems to be able to stop them from spreading. The way the narrative is playing out, it’s almost like World War II. There were two sides on the European front, the side that had Nazi fascism, and the side that was fighting against them.
As for the confederacy statues. They are not being targeted specifically just because of slavery. It’s not that simple. You can read about why here...
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/whoseheritage_splc.pdf
So no, the monuments of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Mount Rushmore don’t have much to worry about.
Just denounce everybody Trump! The AntiFa. The BLM. The KKK. The neo-Nazi. The White Supremacists. Just denounce them all, and not just the violence ones! That’s the easiest thing for him to do. How's that for not taking sides?
BTW, “The Alt-Left” movement is not a real thing. It was made up by the Alt-Right Movement to try and discredit their opposition. Just because there’s an Alt-Right, doesn’t mean there’s an Alt-Left. What’s the opposite of the Alt-Right ideology of white nationalism? Those who don’t believe in white nationalism? If that’s the case, then the so called Alt-Left is basically everybody else in the USA.
Another thing too. The term “Mainstream Media.” Why is that being used like a derogatory term? All popular news outlet, whether it be on TV, on a newspaper, or on the internet, are the mainstream media. That includes all news media that are biased towards their respective side of the political spectrum. Why the term mainstream media is only associated with one political party has boggled me ever since that phrase was first uttered in the campaigns.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
Also noticed that on this blog post, I don’t really use the terms Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, the Left, or the Right. We need to stop using those terms as a form of name-calling. Too many times those words are being used as a way of dividing all of us Americans. Call out specific names or organizations if needed, but lumping everybody into a broad label doesn’t do anybody any favors. After all, both sides have had their fair share of blame since the beginning of the USA (I just remembered the movie “Lincoln” by Spielberg).
We are Americans.
We are humans.
To reiterate what I said on the podcast, I’m definitely not siding with racists.
