"I don't agree with the Nazis, but they had a permit for Normandy & the Allies didn't." -Donald Trump https://t.co/0WeIMfTAZe
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) August 16, 2017
just a reminder because "I don't know if you know" pic.twitter.com/JxSmUo8KUq
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) August 20, 2017
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Excerpted from a piece by John Hudak for FixGov
One of the most important, unofficial roles of an American president is to comfort and help heal the nation when we face tragedy. It is a role no president enjoys serving in, but one that a pained nation expects and needs in order to deal with some ghastly harm.
Whether it was President Reagan speaking to the nation after the Challenger explosion, President Clinton addressing Americans after the Columbine shooting, President Bush speaking from the Oval Office the evening of 9/11, or President Obama eulogizing classrooms of dead first graders from an auditorium in Newtown, Connecticut, all presidents step up to this difficult task.
Or at least, they used to.
Before this week, President Trump appeared capable of playing that role. After Congressman Scalise, members of the Capitol Police, and others were shot by a deranged, leftist gunman in June, Mr. Trump was quick to take appropriate (and expected) action: Consoling victims, honoring heroes, and asking for prayers for a legislator gravely wounded for simply being a Republican and an elected official.
However, during America’s most recent tragedy, when a nervous nation watched a modern-day Bund rally end with an act of terror that killed a young woman, President Trump choked. He didn’t steel the nation with a resolve to step up to hatred and evil. He did not wipe tears from his eyes and offer comfort. He did not offer advice to Americans about how to process an unspeakable display of hatred.
He didn’t do much.
Most presidents would have put politics aside and called out the actions of the worst of our society. They would not have needed staff to force them to sputter through a statement that lacked both heart and awareness. Other presidents would have joined elected officials from both parties, visited Charlottesville, honored those who died, and offered a vision of moral clarity to the nation. Instead, Mr. Trump condoned the perpetrators of that violence, embarrassed a nation with a series of meager responses, and grew increasingly petulant as criticism poured in. He went so far as to retweet a (since deleted) cartoon depicting a member of the mainstream media being run down by a vehicle–just days after a car was used to murder a young woman in Charlottesville.
President Trump showed his true colors when he delivered off-the-cuff remarks during an event on infrastructure. He could no longer deny what his soul demanded he do: publicly sympathize with Nazis and murderers and blame both sides–the other side being the people who stood up and said no to a group of White Nationalists chanting 1930s Nazi mottos like “Blood and Soil” or screaming from behind their torches, “Jews will not replace us.”
While equating counter-protesters, like Saturday’s young victim Heather Heyer, to David Duke, Richard Spencer, and their menagerie of angry white man-children, Mr. Trump brought to the Office of President of the United States a level of moral decay and tone-deaf cowardice that horrified elected officials of both parties, Americans of all stripes, and even his own staff.
The president’s actions were unlike those of any modern president on issues of race or violence. He comforted Nazis by reminding reporters that they had permits and showed fascists they were not the enemy by explaining “there are two sides to everything.”
Imagine a scenario in which President Bush explained to a nation that “9/11 terrorists did buy plane tickets.” Imagine President Obama explaining to reporters asking about ISIS that “there are two sides to every story.”
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When a president fulfills the role, he represents all Americans. Trump is an advocate for only a certain part of the American population. When on August 8, he condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, many sides,” it was his opening statement for providing cover to those he represents and blaming and diminishing those adverse to them with false equivalency.
He continued to represent “his Americans,” on August 15, when he barked “I think there is blame on both sides,” … “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” Of course, no responsible public official wants to say that, except him, because he’s the only one that seeks to provide protection to his clients, the neo-Nazis, White Supremacists and the KKK. To make it clear: “You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists and the press has treated them absolutely unfairly,” Trump said at Trump Tower in New York, referring to those who marched in the night with torches at the white nationalist rally who did not have bad intentions, despite chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and “Blood and soil.”
And of course, to make his case, he did what he always did, he lied to make his clients’ case: Trump said some of the right-wing members of the crowd in the Virginia park were “bad,” But he added that the other side came “charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.” See that, “without a permit?” Another Presidential Lie: https://www.scribd.com/document/356483336/2017-Public-Demonstration-Unity-and-Love-Free-Speech-August-12-2017Certificate-of-Approval#from_embed
America doesn’t need a Grand Wizard or Fuhrer or a Wesley Swift and a proven racist and pathological liar too lead it. A real President is required.
It’s past that time for him to resign, for Congress to remove him, and for Americans to demand both.
H & his readers: a bit off topic but it left me cold when I read it back in February. Place it in the “I Should Have Seen This Coming” file. And when reading it, remember this “man” was a top aide to Senator Jeff Sessions.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/21/1636419/-Yes-Trump-s-Aide-Really-Did-Throw-White-Power-Sign?detail=email&link_id=1&can_id=fbd8335849d81488e21c59936951f83f&source=email-yes-trumps-aide-really-did-throw-white-power-sign-4&email_referrer=yes-trumps-aide-really-did-throw-white-power-sign-4&email_subject=yes-trumps-aide-really-did-throw-white-power-sign
Hope the link works.
It should leave you frozen in your tracks, Dan!! Miller is a dear follower of this goon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz, and a soulmate of Bannon and Gorka.
In 2007, while at Duke University, Miller and the Conservative Union helped Richard B. Spencer (a White Supremacist, one and of their most valued speaker in Charlottesville) put on an anti-immigration debate. Spencer stated in a media interview that he had spent a lot of time with Miller at Duke, and that Miller had mentored him (although this year he walked back some of that under pressure from Miller when Miller was making effort to enter the White House). Yet, having watched Miller make this presentation of Trump’s new anti-immigration policy, I have no doubt that Bannon has left his “bot” in the White House and that Spencer walked back his “mentor statement,” in an effort to clean-up Miller’s act:
http://deadline.com/2017/08/stephen-miller-jim-acosta-confrontation-white-house-press-briefing-immigration-1202140980/
Without Trump manipulating the security clearance process I doubt Gorka or Miller would be working in the WH.