There was something surreal about watching footage of “Unite the Right” demonstrators marching across the University of Virginia campus chanting “white lives matter” and “you will not replace us.” Reports of “scuffles” with counterprotesters were in the news by Saturday. Nobody could have known just what a storm they were unleashing, one that would rattle the White House and cause aftershocks that reached Southern California’s Hollywood Forever cemetery. Another demonstration followed on Saturday to protest the planned removal of a statue depicting Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was disrupted by police just after Noon when a group organized by local activists was met by counterprotesters; the two sides regrouped and faced off again later in the day as police reportedly stood by, unable or unwilling to keep the two factions apart. The crowd of rivals is the one a twenty-year-old drove his Dodge coupe into before fleeing the scene.
This is what confronted President Trump the next day, news that dozens of men were walking across a college campus happily chanting “blood and soil.” There may have been men at Charlottesville who work hard, are good to their wives, and care for their children, but the marcher’s standing as students, husbands, and fathers never mattered. The ideology did. It should have been easy to renounce a Nazi-linked theology and dismiss an implied connection between nationality and ethnicity. The former billionaire developer refused, which should not be a surprise. This president has a history of dodging tough questions by trying to create a moral equivalence, like when Bill O’Reilly pressed Trump about his Russian counterpart. Mister Brexit’s nihilism doesn’t make him a white nationalist — the men who talked to Yahoo News generally agreed — but his differing reactions to drivers plowing their cars into crowds in Charlottesville and Barcelona show that he views events like they do…through a prism of race.
The irony? These groups who were in Virginia ostensibly trying to save a statue have given a level of moral authority to people vandalize or topple monuments in places like Arizona and North Carolina. Anything goes when activists are attempting to “tear down white supremacy.” Takiyah Thompson is an example of rationale leading to action; she is part of a group charged with pulling down a monument in Durham during a protest. Thompson spoke at a press conference before she was arrested and insisted the charges should be dropped because everyone who participated “did the right thing.” Anyone hoping this was an isolated incident is going to be disappointed. In Atlanta, marchers chanting “tear it down” assembled in front of a “Peace Monument” — demonstrators threw a chain around the statue, then vandalized it after they failed to bring it down. These are not garden-variety demonstrations, they’re mob actions and the first sign that Democrats who rightly criticized President Trump after his formulaic statement on Charlottesville will also be tested.
The Bay State became another flashpoint when a “Free Speech” event in Boston led by a crowd of 30 had their words drowned out by an estimated 10,000 counterprotesters. After the rally “fell apart” police escorted attendees to a van that was surrounded by the crowd; an unknown number of them pounded on the van or shouted “make them walk.” Nothing to see here? Police arrested 27 counterprotesters in Beantown. Demonstrators in Durham, Atlanta, and Boston were only responsible for some minor property damage and harassment. But the party of loyal resistance is also dealing with a restless base. The idea that violence is a legitimate part of politics is no longer the province of ethicists and philosophers. Reality struck over the weekend for local authorities in Houston. They arrested a 25-year-old for attempting to destroy a monument depicting a Confederate lieutenant with an improvised explosive device. Fox News’ reaction is predictable: hosts will laud Trump, rattle on about the “alt-left,” and might bring up the Virginia baseball park shooting. If Democrats want issue credibility they’ll have to do better than this.
photos courtesy of telzilla and media3.nbcnews
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