You gotta be kidding.
Anyway, as I’ve said many times, people looking to the president of the US to be some sort of spiritual figure that unites the nation are severely misguided. If Trump’s election does not make that point more clear than ever, they are beyond hope.
Uniting the nation is admittedly a high bar.
How about a lower one. You know, condemning murderous terrorist neo-Nazis by name. Is that still too high an expectation? If so, where do your expectations lie?
Many nations divide the leadership into two roles: The Head of State, and the Head of Government.
The Head of Government is essentially just another government employee. He may be the highest ranked, but he’s not a symbol of the country.
The Head of State fulfills a ceremonial role, they exist as a living symbol of the unity of the country. The Head of State tends to stay out of politics, and is supposed to be an example to other people. Sort of a “spiritual” function I suppose.
The United States combines those two offices into one person. While I can accept that Donald Trump leads the government, I find it deeply repugnant that he symbolizes America. I hate the man on a deep personal level. Trump is a despicable human being, not merely someone who has different political ideas from me. I feel like my country is being desecrated every moment that he remains in office, much akin to the feeling of disgust some folks have when they see the flag being burned.
The Charlottesville rally occurred under a permit. The rally organizer, Jason Kessler, had applied to the city for a rally to be held in the smallish park where the Robert E. Lee statue is located; the city countered by requiring that the rally be held, instead, at a larger park that would be “easier to secure.” Kessler protested and in the event, a federal judge decreed that the rally could be held in the smaller park:
Judge allows Unite the Right rally to stay in Emancipation Park
It may be clear in hindsight that in an effort to protect freedom of speech, the public safety was disregarded. But in any case, the entire process apparently ignored the question of “open carry” as a component of any rally-permit application.
WHY are cities (or other relevant bodies) permitting open carry to be lawful during rallies?
Can a demonstrator express his or her views freely, fully exercising First Amendment rights, ONLY with a semi-automatic rifle in his or her hands? How does that make sense?
Why were demonstrators permitted to get off busses (most of the Unite the Right participants were not Charlottesville residents) with helmets, body armor, and weapons? Why would such gear be considered a prerequisite to exercising First Amendment rights?
How does any of this square up with common sense and good judgment on the part of those issuing rally permits? How is it reasonable?
Permits to demonstrate always contain rules and restrictions. Why not restrict body armor and weaponry, since they are NOT, repeat NOT, mentioned in the First Amendment as being a fundamental component of the expression of free speech?
Hm. Trump’s numbers for August 11 through August 13 on Gallup’s daily presidential job approval poll (based on a three-day rolling average) just dropped to 34% approval (the lowest recorded in that poll since Trump took office); his disapproval spiked to 61% (the highest recorded in that poll for Trump); and his approval-disapproval gap went to 27 points “underwater” (the largest gap yet recorded in that poll). So the OP may in fact be on to something here.
Some caveats: It is of course only one poll. And it’s only one set of data points from that one poll (August 11 through August 13). Also, the numbers can (and almost certainly will) swing back the other way (especially if, as was reported above, Trump has finally managed to condemn violent attacks by Neo-Nazis in reasonably unequivocal terms).
Still, it may be that the American people are not actually all that happy with the President of the United States being somehow associated with violent attacks by white supremacists.
One fascist finds out Actions have consequences.
Also identified on the fascist side of the rally were Washington State University College Republican President James Allsup, who describes himself as a ‘paleoconservative’ or a ‘right wing libertarian’ (but not racist), and Peter Cvjetanovic, who insists he’s not an angry racist. (Maybe he’s a happy racist, then?) Meanwhile, Pete Tefft of North Dakota has been disowned by his family.
Let it be noted that Trump finally came out with the statement he should have issued earlier, condemning specifically “the KKK, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups.”
Let it also be noted that before he was dragged kicking and screaming to do the obvious right thing, he included among his Twitter victims a CEO who had the temerity to quit a council over this issue.
America should be proud of its president’s courageous stance.
To further expand upon this, I’d like to quote the venerable Sam Harris:
Not to nitpick (but I’m going to anyway), did he acknowledge that there were racists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists, etc. IN CHARLOTTESVILLE? IOW did he connect the condemnation with the Charlottesville events, or was it just a general condemnation of bad people over somewhere doing random bad things?
Yet another strawman. Poor strawmen.
What makes a crime politically motivated or a hate crime? Does the criminal leave a card saying this beating was administered on behalf of the KKK and authorized by local Imperial Kobold Cleetus? A black dude smacks a white dude is that a political crime?
Bah…venerable? He’s younger than me! And I said almost the exact same thing right around the election. (His quote was from less than two months ago.)
For once I ninja’ed someone. 
…to be followed by the CEO’s of Under Armour and then Intel, who managed not to get Twitter-fied by president Dilbert. (Yet.)
But then again, neither one of them is black…
Certainly the burden of proof remain on the prosecution to prove all of the elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
If you sat on a jury and felt that the prosecutor had failed to prove that the crime was properly motivated to be a hate crime, you should vote your conscience that the defendant was not guilty of that charge.
The prosecutor either roves the motivation, or the prosecutor does not. :shrug:
Here are some links which may help explain some of the relevant things prosecutors have to prove in hate crime cases:
My first reaction to all this was, “Great, now we’re all either Nazis or liberals.”
I DO think that Trump’s both-siderism is a kind of tic or reflex conditioned by excessive Fox-news style media consumption. It just really bit him in the ass this time since so many people believe racists and bigots are a key part of his base. Because- that’s the case.
Now that either he, or more likely his handlers, have realized how his callous response looks here at home and to the rest of the world, he has come out against the KKK &etc. Good for him, what a big boy step!
I am pretty surprised that I actually believe this about the POTUS in 2017, but: yeah, I do think he just lost the 2020 election, assuming he makes it that far. All these white nationalists, xenophobes and so on are really tired of stuffed-shirt politicians who don’t really represent their interests. They thought Trump was their guy, but even as weasely as he was about it, he just condemned white nationalism. Rightly so, but he’s just another poseur to them now, and can Trump win without the support of the racists who are smart enough to notice such things? I don’t think so. Nonetheless, the GOP plutocrats have plenty of influence for some time to come, and wasn’t that always the point?
Maybe David Duke will get the GOP nomination in 2020. He’s at least the real deal. And we’ll end up with more corporate Democrats, which will make a lot of people take a 3rd look at the Racist Party, rinse and repeat…
That’s pretty much it. Trump didn’t just fumble a response to Charlottesville, he was trying not to offend a big piece of his base who are white nationalists. Let’s not forget that Gorka, one of his advisors, wore Nazi regalia to an inaugural ball. It isn’t just some accident that people associate his administration with white nationalism.
Just realized the wording of that was far too open to misinterpretation. I should’ve said ‘both of them are white.’
And just to be perfectly clear (clearer than any politician who uses that phrase), that was a shot at Trump, who will forever be president Dilbert to me. 
I don’t think so. I think even the smarter ones interpreted the whole debacle as a wink and a nod, and know that he only made the latest statement because he had to.
Even still, the Nazis are taking his mention of “and other hate groups” to include BLM and Antifa.
Exactly, Trump built in some wiggle room for the white nationalists. As long as he still has Gorka and Bannon on his staff, they know that they have a friend in the White House and a back door channel to the president.