Footage of white supremacists in #Charlottesville attacking anti-fascist protesters before #UniteTheRight rally begins #Defendcville pic.twitter.com/YmLpd5Ow4J
— UNICORN RIOT (@UR_Ninja) August 14, 2017
I don't recall dealing with this kerfuffle in detail at the time. I searched the blog and found a brief discussion here. Let me briefly summarize the context. There has been for years a general leftist/politically correct trend against Southern cultural symbols, including Confederate flags, statues, memorials, Southern historically priminent figure names for schools, streets, military bases, etc. To some extent these protests were exacerbated by high-profile ractst attacks such as a 2015 mass murder at a black Charleston SC church. The Charlottesville city council in Feb. 2017 decided to remove a sculpture of legendary Confederate General Robert E. Lee from then Lee Park, both donated in 1917 by Paul Goodloe McIntire.. A lawsuit delayed the removal, but renaming the park in June to Emancipation Park (now Market Street Park) appears to have triggered a Unite the Right rally just before mid-August.
Before proceeding further, let me point out a number of libertarian/conservatives are sympathetic to the acknowledgment of Southern heritage. This doesn't mean we are nostalgic for the evil institution of slavery or morally contemptible Jim Crow and other racist laws. We simply see Lincoln's invasion as unconstitutional and a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. It wasn't over slavery: both the Union and the Confederacy were still recognizing slavery at the end of the War. We think the collapse of slavery was inevitable for any number of reasons (just like it collapsed in Brazil a gemeration later):: competition with ftee labor in the South; high costs of capturing fugitive slaves in a free Northern Union with a long shared border; increasing demand for free-labor cotton; advances in agricultural technology, etc. The main point is Lincoln is responsible for over a million American deaths. For most of us, things like memorials were instruments of reconciliation, recognition of the efforts of men who fought to defend their homeland. And in fact, Robert E. Lee probably more than anyone worked to reunify the country in the aftermath of a divisive conflict. I think morally self-superior presentist scapegoating is unjust and morally imdefensible; we get the message you don't approve of slavery: you don't need to convince a libertarian of its intrinsic evil.
The issue I have with these leftist cultural abolitionists is theit intolerance of Southern heritage that they seek to impose of the rest of society. It's not enough that the Union conquered the Confederacy; the very idea that anyone could identify with rebellious region tainted by the evil of slavery! It must be expunged from the pages of history. (Personally, I'm not obsessed with the Civil War; I did visit Ft. Sumter on a family trip when my dad was stationed in SC, but I've lived nearly 15 years in the Baltimore area, maybe a 90-minute drive from Gettysburg, and I haven't been there.) I simply don't believe in this intolerance. Most people in the Confederacy didn't own slaves but they were vested in the security of their homeland from Union invaders. To give another example, during my 2-year residency at the University of Texas working on my math Master's, I had walked past a number of statues on campus, undoubtedly some of them Confederate, although I never bothered to read relevant plaques. I don't recall any PC controversies while I lived on campus. Of course the university decided to relocate relevant statues elsewhere (Museum? The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History) in 2015-2017. I do not like a vocal minority imposing a type of ideological censorship on others. I have never been in favor of the squeaky wheel censoring even a majority. Part of a pattern, e.g.,opposition to a privately-funded cross on Nativity on public land.
I know the UT Administration largely bought into SPLC claptrap, talking points and conspiracy theories regarding the timing and motivations of building statues and monuments. For example, many Civil War veterans were entering into retirement years in the early twentieth century and the 50's/60's marked the centennial of the Civil War. There were lots of reasons for deferred action on monuments: : a post-war depressed economy, pro-union opposition. For more discussion I refer the interested reader to Brion McClanahan and the Abbeville Institute.
Finally I want to point out is that a majority of Americams still favors preserving Confederate history, including a large percentage of Republicans and a majority of independents. By one recent study about only 6% of Americans are far-right.
What provoked my writing this essay? A Snopes article on the "very fibe people" kerfuffle recently sparked a hot trend on Twitter/X. I've used Snopes many times over the years, particularly in debunking Internet memes and chain letters. I swear my Mom must have been forwarded every one of these by email to myself and my siblings. For the first few dozens, I rebutted each one of these personally, primarily for the benefit of my siblings, and Snopes was an invaluable resource. I secretly hoped my Mom would reconsider propagating this rubbish. Unfortunately, she ignored my replies and if anything she seemed to redouble her efforts. It was a sinkhole of my time; I tried to give her a tutorial on accessing and searching Snopes for the memes to no avail. I eventually gave up and started filtering her forwarded enails. Years later, I learned Snopes also took on rating political claims and also took on a generally leftist reputation.
So let's generally describe the scenario for the far-right rally in Charlottesville, ostensibly over the Lee statue removal and park renaming:
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacis rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. [T]he organizers intended for the rally to unite far-right groups with the goal of playing a larger role in American politics. Marchers included members of the alt-right,neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and far-right militias. Some groups chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, the Valknut, Confederate battle flags, Deus vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present antisemitic and anti-Islamic groups...The rally turned violent after protesters clashed with counter-protesters, resulting in more than 30 injured. ..At around 1:45 p.m., self-identified white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about 1⁄2 mile (800 m) away from the rally site, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 people.
Trump responded to the tragedy in a convoluted fashion:
[Saturday] "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides — on many sides," Trump said in a short statement delivered in New Jersey. "It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It's been going on for a long, long time." Trump tweeted twice more that afternoon, offering condolences to the families of Heyer and the troopers, but did not make any specific mention of the controversial groups.
[Sunday] "The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together," the White House spokesperson said.
[Monday] "Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," he said. "To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered," he added.
[Tuesday] Asked about his immediate response Saturday, Trump quickly went on to blame both sides for the conflict, adding that there were "very fine people" among both the white supremacists and the counter-protesters."I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there is blame on both sides," Trump said during his remarks on Aug. 15. "You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides," he added.
I clipped Trump's Tuesday's presser above. He paid lip service to denouncing white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the like, which he seems to identify with the violent elements, although I seriously doubt he could distinguish among the vatious right-wing protest groups, which didn't wear football uniforms to tell them apart. Trump was pissed the media focused on his Saturday generic message, which at best was equivocal and directly accused at least some counterprotesters of being bigots and morally culpable . Keep in mind this was in the aftermath of Fields' homicidal car attack killing Heyer and injuring several others. He got several things wrong. UVA did not require permits. Trump argued that the protesters had a permit but the counter-protesters didn't. This is false. It's true the protesters held a judicial--not locally-issued--permit for Emancipation Park for Saturday, instead of the locally preferred (for security) McIntire Park. The counter-protesters held at least 2 locally-issued adjacent park permits and were told they didn't need one for Emancipation Park. Trump was clearly sympathetic to the protesters' pro-Lee stand, arguing George Washington was next. He explicitly discusses an alleged counter-protester violent attack. So he is arguing against the legitimacy of the counterprotest and suggesting the latter were just as responsible.
Let's briefly discuss the UVA march on Friday which Trump seemed to suggest was a perfect "quiet" protest:
Video shows some of the protesters shouting “blood and soil,” a phrase invoking the Nazi philosophy of “Blut und Boden.” The ideology stressed that ethnic identity is based on only blood descent and the territory in which an individual lives – and it celebrated rural farmers and peasants as virtuous Germans...The “blood and soil” chants began Friday night when torch-bearing protesters marched at the University of Virginia and clashed with counterprotesters. More white nationalist protesters continued the cries during Saturday’s gatherings.
Now the testimony of a victim counter-protester:
Natalie Romero said she and friends were standing at the Thomas Jefferson statue on the University of Virginia campus the night of August 11, 2017, when they were surrounded by hundreds of chanting White nationalists carrying tiki torches.
The crowd shouted racial slurs, spit at her and her friends and even threw torches at them, she said.
“I tried to keep my head down. I felt like a mouse trapped,” Romero testified. The scene felt like “a Salem witch trial-type, like I was going to be burned at the stake,” she said.
The next day the UVA student took part in a counterprotest in downtown Charlottesville when she was struck and flipped over a car barreling down the street – the same car which ran over and killed counterprotester Heather Heyer.
[Funny thing. I didn't hear one chant about Robert E. Lee. Not that an idiot like Trump would notice.]
BuzzFeed News reporter Blake Montgomery: “Most white supremacist and Nazi groups arrived armed like a paramilitary force — carrying shields, protective gear, rods and, yes, lots of guns, utilizing Virginia’s loose firearm laws. They used militarized defensive maneuvers, shouting commands at one another to ‘move forward’ or ‘retreat,’ and would form a line of shields or a phalanx — it’s like they watched ‘300’ a few times — to gain ground or shepherd someone through projectiles. It seemed that they had practiced for this.”
It's difficult to summarize the rallies' attendance and composition, but Google Gemini estimates hundeds each of protesters and counter-protestors on Saturday. On Friday bout 30 UVA sudents surrounded a campus Jefferson statue and were surrounded by some dozens to maybe 250 tiki torch-bearing protesters. There were armed members, if not militias on each side. The police there did not maintain sufficient distance between the sides. We also have to understand this rally in the context of earlier skirmishes in May and July. Local residents, college students and religious coalitions, among others, were upset at these outsiders targeting their community. It is not surprising that Antifa among others showed up to protect counter-protesters; Trump has a history of scapegoating Antifa for any violence, most prominently recently for his mob's violence on J6. To be sure, counter-protesters engaged in taunting the protesters and tried to block the protesters from entering, e.g., Emancipation Park. There are some reports of certain counter-protesters fighting back with stones, mace or pepper spray and other homemade weapons. However, it was clear that the protesters were prepared for resistance, fronting the march into the park, with body shields, helmets, stick and cluns, aimed right at unprotected counter-protesters ahead of them, not waiting for police to make a hole. I've seen copies of celebratory messages claiming successes in confronting Antifa.
Some anecdotal evidence of some unaffiliated (local?) protesters: for example, a UVA sudent mentioned trying to rescue an elderly protester fallen in the street. But the preponderance of the evidence is violence of the protesters (beyond the Fields homicide): notably,:
A white supremacist has been found guilty of viciously beating a black man during the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last summer. Jacob Scott Goodwin, 23, was in a group of men who attacked DeAndre Harris, 20, in a parking garage during the far-right rally. The jury recommended a sentence of ten years and a $20,000 fine
Other protesters were arrested as well on the day of the protest:
Virginia State Police said Saturday night that three people had been arrested in connection to the rally. Troy Dunigan, 21, of Chattanooga, Tenn., was charged with disorderly conduct; Jacob L. Smith, 21, of Louisa, Va., was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery; and James M. O'Brien, 44, of Gainesville, Fla., was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, Virginia State Police said.
Not to mention multiple protest leaders were convicted and assessed a multi-million penalty:
A federal jury found white supremacists and neo-Nazi organizers of the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville engaged in a conspiracy to intimidate, harass or harm ahead of the deadly weekend four years ago, and awarded plaintiffs $26 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The jury did not reach a verdict on two federal conspiracy charges, but did find that every defendant — including notorious white supremacists Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler and Christopher Cantwell — was liable for civil conspiracy under Virginia state law.
$2M of that jugment was compensatory but apparently state law limited punitive damages to $350K. An appeals court recently ruled each of the 8 plaintiffs deserved that amount..
So let's now assess Trump's incompetent and contentious leadership following the rally. The critics are mostly correct here: Trump did not point fingers at the protesters from the get-go; I suspect he saw them as allies against leftists. He also identified against the PC/anti-monument cause. He would try to excuse it later as wanting to get all the facts. All of this in the face of Fields' deliberately driving into a crowd of counter-protectors.
Then came the morally ambiguous "fine people on both sides". There's nothing laudable about people bonding together over intolerance of Jews, blacks, and immigrants, among others. The thugs who threw tiki torches at UVA students are criminals, pure and simple. They were chanting blood and soil, not the virtues of Robert E. Lee. Arguing the clergymen preaching tolerance are no better than peiople united by a philosophy of hate. Where did Trump find "display of hatred, bigotry, and violence" among religious leaders in the counter-protesters? It's unsupported, self-serving rubbish.
Did Trump pay lip service to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Yes, but it was like pulling teeth. It's a rhetorical gimmick whereby Trump thinks he has wiggle room in his J6 speech with gratuitous references to a peaceful protest.
So Snopes didn't really focus on the logical question of where did Trump find the vaguely identified "fine people" among protesters? Which groups in the coalition were not neo-Nazis or white supremacists? I don't really think Trump really went beyond whether protesters or counter-protestors physically engaged in scuffles with the other side. That's insufficient; for example, we libertarians believe in the Non-Aggression Principle, which includesthe right of self-defense. And freedom of speech doesn't nean under these circumstances using racial slurs or other language to incite violence.
In conclusion, Trump may have paid lip service to specific groups within the coalition, but he couldn't distinguish members in the coalition, and a number of people, including me, would refer to the others as neo-Nazis or white supremicists, which means Trumo was INDIRECTLY calling them very fine people.
Thus, all these right-wingers are improperly referencing Snopes an an exoneration of Trump. In fact, Snopes specifically said it was judging Trump on specific language, not whether what Trump was saying was true.
The fact that scum like David Duke, former KKK Wizard, praised Trump's statements tells you all you need to know. Unlike Trump, GHW Bush wanted to distance the GOP from the likes of Duke. Trump's incompetent, failed leadership through this crisis is shameful. "Merck CEO Ken Frazier, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich have all resigned from President Trump's American Manufacturing Council following the president's response to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia." "Gary Cohn, the president's top economic adviser, was so upset by Trump's response to violent clashes involving white nationalists in Charlottesville that he drafted a letter of resignation, a source with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed to ABC News." Trump, as usual, attacked Frazier: "Trump quickly ripped Frazier on Twitter, writing that his resignation will give more time to “LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”"
