Time's up.
And I'm not talking to Donald Trump.
More on that shortly.
Chris Cillizza is an online editor and writer for CNN.com. And, right off the bat, on this day after Charlottesville, spare me, if you're feeling inclined or obligated to go there, the knee jerk, go to dismissal of one of "them there libtard snowflake fake news media morons".
Today, I'm neither interested, inclined or obligated to give a shit what you think or what you have to say. And if what I'm saying already has you ready to sputter and spew and distract and defend, do yourself and the sincerely reasonable people left in this country a huge patriotic favor and move along.
Cillizza wrote this piece for online appearance after Trump's statement regarding the Charlottesville lynch mob's exercise of their "right to free speech."
A group of white supremacists, screaming racial, ethnic and misogynistic epithets, rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday. One person was killed and 19 others were injured when a car sped into a group of counter-protesters.
This is what the President of the
United States said about it:
"We condemn in the strongest
possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many
sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not
Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long
time."
It's hard to imagine a less
presidential statement in a time in which the country looks to its elected
leader to stand up against intolerance and hatred.
Picking a "worst" from
Donald Trump's statement -- delivered from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf
club -- isn't easy. But, the emphasis of "on many sides" -- Trump
repeated that phrase twice -- is, I think, the low ebb.
Both sides don't scream racist and
anti-Semitic things at people with whom they disagree. They don't base a belief
system on the superiority of one race over others. They don't get into
fistfights with people who don't see things their way. They don't create chaos
and leave a trail of injured behind them.
Arguing that "both sides do
it" deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this
"Unite the Right" rally. These people are bigots. They are
hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got
violent. Violence sits at the heart of their warped belief system.
Trying to fit these hate-mongers
into the political/ideological spectrum -- which appears to be what Trump is
doing -- speaks to his failure to grasp what's at play here. This is not a
"conservatives say this, liberals say that" sort of situation. We all
should stand against this sort of violent intolerance and work to eradicate it
from our society -- whether Democrat, Republican, Independent or not political
in the least.
What Trump failed to do is what he
has always promised to do: Speak blunt truths. The people gathered in
Charlottesville this weekend are white supremacists, driven by hate and
intolerance. Period. There is no "other side" doing similar things
here.
"Mr. President - we must call
evil by its name," tweeted Sen. Cory Gardner,
R-Colorado. "These were white supremacists and this was domestic
terrorism.",tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, another fellow
Republican: "Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events
in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by
#whitesupremacists."
What Trump is doing -- wittingly or
unwittingly -- is giving cover to the sort of beliefs (and I use that word
lightly) on display in Charlottesville.
Chalking it all up to a violent
political rhetoric that occurs on both sides and has been around for a very
long time contextualizes and normalizes the behavior of people who should not
be normalized. It is not everyday political rhetoric to scream epithets at
people who don't look like you or worship like you. Trump's right that this
sort of behavior has existed on American society's fringes for a long time --
but what we as a nation, led by our presidents, have always done is call it out
for what it is: radical racism that has no place in our world.
So, that's the big one. But there
are other things in Trump's statement that are also worth calling out -- most
notably "not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama."
What Trump is doing here is
pre-emptively absolving himself of blame for creating a political climate in
the country in which people like these "Unite the Right"
demonstrators feel emboldened enough to rally in public. Not my fault, Trump is
saying. There were hate groups and hate speech under Obama too!
With someone dead and more than two
dozen people injured, this is, of course, not the time for assigning blame. Or
for making political calculations. This is a time to say: We stand together
against what we saw in Charlottesville today. Trump didn't do that. Not even
close.
Then, last but not least, is what
Trump said a few paragraphs after his "on many sides" comment.
Here
it is:
"Our country is doing very well
in so many ways. We have record -- just absolute record employment. We have
unemployment, the lowest it's been in
almost 17 years. We have companies pouring into our country. Foxconn and car
companies, and so many others, they're coming back to our country. We're
renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country and great for the American
worker. We have so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I
watch Charlottesville, to me it's very, very sad."
Really? A pivot to an
I-am-not-getting-enough-credit-for-all-the-good-I-am-doing-in-the-country line?
With scenes of hatred splashed across TV screens? With someone dead?
This speech is not the time to tout
your accomplishments. I mean "we're renegotiating trade deals to make them
great for our country"? Who thought that was a good thing to say in the
same speech in which Trump, theoretically, was trying to reassure people that
what we all saw in Charlottesville is not, fundamentally, who we are?
That no one -- starting and ending
with the President -- raised a red flag about tacking on a laundry list of
accomplishments to a speech that should have simply condemned the behavior in
Charlottesville and called to our better angels, is staggering, even for this
White House.
There are moments where we as a
country look to our president to exemplify the best in us. They don't happen
every day. Sometimes they don't happen every year. But, when they do happen, we
need the person we elected to lead us to, you know, lead us.
Trump did the opposite today.
First...yeah, what he said.
Second, time's up.
And I'm not talking to Donald Trump.
The exhausting, infuriating and, bet your white pride bonfire, baby, inevitable knee jerk, go to defense of Trump and his latest failure to show any ability whatsoever to do the job he was hired to do from numerous victims of Kool Aid poisoning was, and will continue to be, the pivot to "but what about."
But what about when Obama ___________________
But what about when Hillary ___________________
But what about when Bill Clinton _______________
And the libtard, snowflake, Demo"rat", O"bummer" side of the aisle didn't get all of the harpooning.
But what about when Bush ________________
But what about when, well, hell, just fill in the blank because blaming everything and anything for what's wrong at any given moment of the day or night, these days, is what being Trump, or being a Trump supporter, is all about, right?
Here's the thing.
Time's up.
No more blaming Obama or Hillary or Bill or Dubya or Nixon or LBJ or Groucho or Harpo or Chico or Zeppo for ANYTHING having to do with what is happening today, right now, in this nation.
Trump's watch.
Trump's responsibility.
That's the gig.
He wanted it. He got it.
You wanted him. You got him.
And spare us any more "but what about" fill in the blank bullshit.
Trump's entire election campaign, from the moment of its inception, was an overt and unmistakable appeal to the lesser of us, the angrier of us, the less educated of us, the less informed of us, the less tolerant of us, the less intelligent of us, the less compassionate and decent of us.
The least worthy of being among us... of us.
And spare us the sad, sorry and, once and for all, useless attempts to parse words, mince words, play word games and/or head games to either cover his ass or cover your own for your part in putting him in the Oval Office.
Donald Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he appealed to the anger and frustration and venom and vitriol that existed, and exists, inside the soulless, vicious animals that showed up in a pack this weekend in Virginia.
And they hung on every word he was saying during those speeches, every mention of "beating the shit" out of somebody/anybody who gets in the way, every cheap shot, name calling he did, and still does, to those who got in the way, every mocking moment of putting down those who were different, from their color to their sexuality to their inability to hold their arms in front of them without having to let others see that they are bent and defective.
They hung on every single word.
And they heard a promise in those words. A promise that the America where they want to live, an America of heterosexual only, whites only, master race pride was only the push of a ballot box button away.
So, those ballot box buttons got pushed.
And yesterday, they showed up to cash in on that promise they heard him make.
Not the promise Obama made. Or Hillary. Or Bill. Or Bush. Or Nixon.
Trump.
And while we all have to live with the results, and consequences, of what you set in motion when you pushed that ballot box button until he is no longer in a position to do any more damage to this country, your "freedom" to defend, detract, distract, obfuscate, rationalize, justify and/or condone what he is and what he is doing, and has yet to do, has been revoked.
That "right" went up in smoke this weekend. A victim of the fire of hatred that blazed bigly in Charlottesville, Virginia.
No more "but what about" fill in the blank bullshit.
Trump owns this. And all that is yet to come.
And you own Trump.
Still need some time to prove that he really is presidential?
Still need some time to show us we've been wrong all along about this man and you've been right?
Not gonna happen.
Time's up.
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