World
Trump's Misguided Hesitation
Charlottesville tragedy has roots in the president's inflammatory rhetoric
By Jon Taylor  ·  2017-08-18  ·   Source: | NO. 34 AUGUST 24, 2017

So many disturbing and heartbreaking themes emerged out of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 that it's difficult to know where to begin. The events in Charlottesville—particularly the white supremacy that was on display—were, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon. Two questions have been raised repeatedly in the aftermath of Charlottesville: What is the root cause of this rage and what are the consequences of this violence?

There is little doubt that Donald Trump's presidency has, either carelessly or overtly, motivated the white nationalist and white supremacy movement to come out of the shadows and display its hatred with unabashed pride. The movement has encouraged hatred via an online "troll" culture which has pushed the boundaries of civility by arguing against diversity in the name of identity politics and was part of a broader cultural backlash that helped elect Trump. Combine that movement with a greater emphasis on nationalism, racial resentment, fear of immigration, and opposition to economic globalization and it is of little wonder that things eventually boiled over in Charlottesville.

Frankly, President Trump's original comments criticizing violent white nationalists who marched through the streets of Charlottesville were far too muted and definitely too late. The fact that it took the death of counter protester Heather Heyer and a massive public backlash to spur Trump to actually denounce neo-Nazis and white nationalists is both shameful and demoralizing to most Americans. It suggests that Trump is so politically tone-deaf and detached from political reality that he thought that his original comments were adequate. The alternative is even more disturbing to consider: Trump did not want to alienate those whom he considers to be an important part of his political constituency. It has been 72 years since World War II ended and we are presented with the spectacle of a U.S. president who was slow to condemn white supremacists.

Granted, President Trump is not directly responsible for the actions that killed Heyer, but his incendiary rhetoric helped encourage the driver with hate, who ploughed a car into the crowd against the white supremacy rally. If one doubts that or believes that I am engaging hyperbole, recall that Trump has never been slow to regularly condemn China for baseless charges on trade, intellectual property, the South China Sea, cross-Taiwan Straits relations, and the Korean Peninsula tension. During his campaign for president, he was never slow to attack the Black Lives Matter movement by name for allegedly causing attacks on police officers—even as he explicitly encouraged violence at his own campaign rallies by telling his supporters that he would cover their legal expenses if they got arrested. And just a few weeks ago, Trump encouraged New Jersey police officers to rough up suspects.

As a son of the south myself, one who had ancestors who fought in battle for the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy, I have always found the need for commemorating these so-called "heroes" of a failed rebellion uncomfortably problematic at best, racist at worse. The legacy of the "Lost Cause" says a lot about the United States, but what it says has nothing to do with freedom or heritage but with racism. White supremacists in the post-Civil War south embarked upon an effort to alter the legacy of the war through the "Lost Cause" and divorce it from its racist roots. The result is a stubborn persistence to maintain Confederate monuments that goes well beyond history. It is a persistence that blithely ignores the obvious pain that it causes to those who were directly impacted by the legacy of the Confederacy:

African-Americans.

The white supremacist protesters have speciously claimed that the statues are there just to help us remember the past. But name another nation where the statues of traitors abound, where their names are also on streets, squares, schools, and military facilities. I cannot imagine toleration, let alone admiration, in other nations for memorializing the very people who led a bloody, failed rebellion. If these statues truly symbolized "heritage, not hate," why are there hundreds of monuments dedicated to a side that lost the war? The answer is because most Confederate memorials were established between the 1890s and 1940s, which was during the depths of the apartheid-like "Jim Crow" segregationist era.

The violent events in Charlottesville were both shocking and sickening. Recognizing that the virulent hatred on display has its roots in both white nationalism and ethnic resentment is the first step in combating it. Having an American president forcefully and regularly denounce white nationalism would be a good second step. But the next steps after that are up to the American people and will require recognizing that the United States has reached a turning point on race relations, its legacy and ultimate reconciliation. It will require forcefully combating the "Lost Cause" mythology that denies the central role that slavery played as a cause—the cause—of the American Civil War. And that will require that Confederate monuments must come down across the nation, whether the white nationalist protesters like it or not.

Copyedited by Bryan Michael Galvan

Comments to liuyunyun@bjreview.com

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