The "worst", "sickening" President Trump at 4:30 today:
"It's not just the one statue, they're taking down statues all over. We take down Robert E. Lee today... do we take down Washington tomorrow and Jefferson the next day?"
This is a ridiculous argument.
Two are Founding Fathers and American presidents. The other is a piece of shit who betrayed his country when he lead a war against it to preserve the slavery of an entire race.
This isn't a slippery slope. The difference is clear.
REALITY CHECK: History is filled with men who did both good and bad. You don't erase the pillars of human civilization and take down their statues and erase them from history just because they had flaws and made some bad decisions.
Right. Like those statues of Benedict Arnold and John Wilkes Booth all over the place.
But let's get to the nuts and bolts of this. No, deciding that it's not appropriate to commemorate villains is not the same as erasing them from history. Germany has zero statues of Hitler, but every German citizen knows who he was and what he did.
The truth is, even if the vast majority of these monuments weren't erected during the Jim Crow era to paint the Southern cause as just and white supremacy as legitimate, you still wouldn't have a point.
Should we similarly tear down the statues of Martin Luther King and erase his holiday because he was a womanizer and adulterer, and on a few occasions advocated violence to advance his civil rights agenda?
Absolutely not, because calling slavery and treason the same as courting violence upon protestors for the greater goal of America finally seeing itself, which it did, would be a false equivalence and false equivalences are stupid.
First, I've noticed you brand a lot of information that comes from liberal outlets as inaccurate because the outlets are liberal, but don't do the same for books from Fox pundits, conservative websites, and so forth.
There's not any point to that. It's not very surprising. But it is always very interesting.
Second, are you talking about journalists? The only polls I could find that upheld that 7% number you gave were polls of journalists themselves, and while I could go on and on about how polls that ask people about their own political leanings don't actually prove anything, I'd rather bring attention to the fact that the vast majority of journalists in those polls self-identified as independent or "other."
To get to that 80% number, you'd have to label everyone who self identified as an independent a liberal and everyone who self-identified as a Democrat as "very liberal." Is that what you're doing?
Third, JESUS H.! Even Fox News can't love Trump. I knew even they were talking about his gaffes--I've watched way more Fox News than I care to admit--but they still can't come up positive, even as they try to spin his shit as something other than shit.
Maybe when he actually does something right, he'll get in the green, at least at Fox News. I mean, I think the overall effect of his handling of North Korea has been positive, but that was more of a "crazy meets crazy with a bigger army" kinda thing.
AGAIN: Trump has condemned violence on both sides.
And again, not good enough. When you're dealing with a hate group, you should call it out by name, instead of giving them the wink and the nod they need to believe you're on their side.
Also, you maybe condemn racism itself because that's bad too.
Unlike Obama who >>>>NEVER<<<< condemned Black Lives Matter, and who even invited the Black Lives Matter leadership to the White House after they were killing cops, Trump >>>DID<<< condemn white supremacist violence, and >>>DID NOT<<<< similarly give legitimacy to white supremacists.
You said the stuff about BLM before. I responded to it before. I won't even bother doing it again. But I will say that insisting that he did not give the white supremacists legitimacy doesn't make it so.
Most people see his three remarks as a showing of support. Many members of his own party see them as support. Members of the president's staff see them as support. The racists themselves see them as support.
“Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth.” If David Duke likes what's coming out of your mouth, there's an extremely good chance you're on the wrong side.
It is a fact that BOTH sides came to the Charlottesville protests with helmets and clubs, and both have a share of blame in the violence. I don't support either the white supremacists dipshits, or the "Antifa" dipshits (who are as fascist and violent as what they claim to oppose). But unlike M E M, Mr. Jason Perkins, and the liberal media, I do hold both sides to the same standard.
Damn right I don't. I don't think fighting for the plight of Nazis, klansmen, and white supremacists is the same as fighting against them.
I don't, and I don't apologize for that.
And I'm guessing none of the brave men and women who fought on the right side in World War II do either.
The only difference I can possibly see is if Antifa attacked first. Do you have any solid evidence that shows they did?
When I watched the coverage, I only ever saw about 200 at most white supremacist protestors, vastly outnumbered by thousands of "Antifa" (anti-fascist) counter-protestors.
Good.
I can't find any legit source that gives a count of the people on both sides, and, frankly, your eyes aren't unbiased sources, but I'd be thrilled to find out that the anti-racists outnumbered the racists by that much.
Some white supremacists there I saw interviewed were belligerent and clearly wanted to kick some ass. Others I saw interviewed said they were carrying weapons "just in case" to protect themselves if attacked. And they knew going in they would be vastly outnumbered.
Are you alluding to the idea that the white supremacists were calmer and less violent than the counter-protestors, or that there was a lower number of violent white supremacists there? Are you saying that there weren't any Antifa protesters there who carried weapons 'just in case"? If so, I'd like to see your evidence of that.
AGAIN: Trump NEVER in any way supported the white supremacists, has been more critical of violence on both sides, than Obama ever was less than a year ago of even greater violence by Black Lives Matter, which he NEVER condemned, never questioned the legitimacy of the rhetoric that led to the shootings, in multiple cities.
He supported them when he was asked if he condemned the white supremacists and chose to walk out of the room instead.
He supported white supremacists when he gave moral equivalence to klansmen and BLM, as you have.
He supported them when, after insisting that others must call radical Islamic terrorism by its name, he had to be pressured into reading a denouncement of the KKK "and other hate groups" off a piece of paper.
He supported them when he used the same speech to tout employment numbers.
He supported them when he said there were very fine people on the side that shouted "Jews will not replace us!"
