Bad Things Were Bound to Happen in Charlottesviile

A few thoughts about what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend:

The white nationalists who organized the rally in defense of a statue of Robert E. Lee claim it was planned as a peaceful gathering. But there wasn’t much chance of that. What they actually created was akin to the Catholic notion of an “occasion of sin.” Given the circumstances, bad things were bound to happen–horrible sins. What did they expect when their ranks were fortified with Klansmen and neo-Nazis? A chatty sit-in? They marched provocatively across the grounds of the University of Virginia with torches. Violent conflicts were avoided only because UVA had canceled most events. When fighting broke out in downtown Charlottesville, the worst happened: a neo-Nazi is charged with driving his car into a peaceful crowd of protesters, killing one woman and injuring 19 others. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe correctly called it “car terrorism.” Organizers had turned down a request to shift the rally to a large public park–easier for police to keep things under control. Nonetheless, they fault the police for not protecting them.

Yes, violent lefties were on hand to ensure that fighting would erupt. But the media largely ignored their role. No surprise there. The Washington Postreferred, at least in its next-day coverage, to nameless “counterprotesters.” Some of them were clever. In last year’s campaign, they provoked fights at Trump rallies and Trump got the sole blame. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times spotted the leftist “antifa” thugs in Charlottesville. Supposedly anti-fascist, they act like fascists. “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right,” she tweeted. “I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.” Stolberg’s reporting was fair and thorough, the best I read anywhere.

What was President Trump thinking when he failed to denounce the white nationalists and their pals specifically? I suspect he figured it was a replay of the violence at his rallies. This is a pretty poor excuse. They are racists. My God, the Klan and Nazis! Calling them white nationalists, as I have, is a euphemism. Surely the president knows that. In one swoop, he could have condemned them along with the violent leftists. And he could have disassociated himself again with Klan leader David Duke, who parades around as numero uno among Trump supporters. Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to repudiate these folks. By not doing so, he hurts himself and the country.

If you wondered who would be the first to declare Trump responsible for the racism and turmoil in Charlottesville, it was the city’s mayor, Mike Signer. The blame “goes right to the doorstep of the president and the people around him who chose to dance with the devil in their presidential campaign,” Signer said. His reward was immediate. He appeared on the Sunday morning TV interview shows, saying on CBS’s Face the Nation that Trump “should look in the mirror.” On NBC’s Meet the Press, he said Trump had made a deal with the devil and “the devil changes you.” Signer is the opposite of Duke. He’s seems bent on becoming America’s top Trump basher. Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, the mayor proclaimed Charlottesville the “capital of the resistance.”