The condemnation falls short

I had to watch him say it. Still, even after his make-up statement on Monday, August 14, 2017, a significant problem remains with Donald Trump’s condemnation of white supremacists.

Weasel Words & Dog Whistles

The words “and other hate groups”, and “”including”, are a finely crafted means of condemning BLM and anti-fascist groups alongside white supremacists. You may want to excuse Trump for this — after all, any hate group that commits and condones violence should be condemned. But the inclusion of these words (and groups) should not be forgiven, as it perpetuates the “many sides” argument that was deemed unacceptable in his original statement.

What the country demanded was an unequivocal and isolated condemnation of white supremacists. While there are many groups that have white supremacy at their core, they all belong to the same side.

We are still due a condemnation in isolation of groups connected by this common, racist thread, wherein one, specific heritage is deemed superior.

With these weasel words, what Donald Trump continued to perpetuate are the comments of white supremacy apologists and adherents filled with whataboutism — the false equivalence of “both sides do it”– that fill the Twitterverse, Facebook, and TV discourse.

Hint: a sign is not violence, and ”this machine kills fascists” was originally on Woodie Guthrie’s guitar.

Furthermore, these dog whistles to white supremacists from the highest office (*wink wink I’m still on your side, do more*) allow racist leaders like David Duke to make comments that endorse Trump as one of their own:

David Duke says he was at Charlottesville rally to fulfill promise of Trump.

The Sore Thumb of Inclusion

That his two public statements on the incidents in Charlottesville have deliberately included groups that are not white supremacist in nature, his statements stick out like a sore thumb amongst the flood of condemnation. Other public officials, from a wide spectrum of affiliations and political leanings, have had no problem isolating white supremacists from other groups in their statements over the weekend:

Donald Trump’s inclusion of “other” groups is, perhaps, the subtlest he has been in his lawnmower political approach. Because it leaves a back door swinging open for the progenitors of white supremacist hate, it falls short of an acceptable statement by a sitting president.