Thompson: Nazis and terrorism in Charlottesville

A few weeks ago, in this space, I defended Ann Coulter’s right to peddle her racist views at the University of California, Berkeley.
I still wholeheartedly believe in the right to free speech and believe we need it now more than ever, even as I try to reconcile that with my belief that the backward, perverted views of the world expressed by Coulter and others of her ilk have no place in the one I envision for my young son and his future children.
I’ve also written that I believe the good in the world vastly outweighs the evil, and that hasn’t changed one bit. But that doesn’t excuse us from confronting — loudly and vigorously — the fact that evil, hate, prejudice and fear are alive and well in this world.
And make no mistake about it, evil came to Charlottesville, Va. last weekend. Whatever you want to think about Confederate monuments, “Southern heritage,” etc., I don’t much care. What really matters is during the “Unite the Right” protests by Nazis, neo-Confederates and other alt-right groups, someone was killed (Two state troopers who had been monitoring the event were also killed in a helicopter crash).
That death, caused by a racist from Ohio who bulldozed his car through a crowd of counter-protesters, was the result of a pure act of terrorism fueled by a belief of white supremacism.
That’s what it was: white supremacy and domestic, homegrown terrorism.
Crises, like the one we are faced with here and others in the world today, command the attention and acknowledgement of all of us and especially those we elect to represent us. President Trump addressed the act of violence in Charlottesville in a news conference, denouncing the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides — on many sides.”
Wrong. This is not the fault of “many sides.” It is the fault of racists and cowards, so blinded to any form of reason and logic. So convinced that they’ve somehow been wronged and oppressed by this country, even though their ancestors weren’t enslaved, beaten, murdered and treated as subhuman — under protection of the law at the time — in a nation that had been founded on the divine belief that all men are created equal.
It is ironic, but telling, that the president, who has routinely chastised his predecessor and others in the opposite party for not using terms like “radical Islam” and “terrorism” would at least initially (He issued a follow-up statement Monday) shy away from calling this what it is.
I don’t know what is really in his heart, but I do know that he helped encourage the continuous, racially-tinged questioning of President Obama’s birthplace. Whether he wanted to be or not, he was embraced by white supremacists determined to “take our country back.” He appointed people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who have lent legitimacy to these people, to his administration. He cozied up to hate-filled people in a quest to become the most powerful man in the world. Anything he or others who previously shrugged off the alt-right say now rings hollow.
Regardless of whether this is what he envisioned or intended, there were Trump campaign signs and “Make America Great Again” hats in Charlottesville, amid the Nazis. His rhetoric has emboldened the irrational hatred he spoke of. As the vile David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who apparently thought Trump went too far with his condemnation, put it: “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror (and) remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.”
Others in the president’s party, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Marco Rubio and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, didn’t hesitate to call the violence for what it was.
Events like the awful ones in Charlottesville should be viewed as a test and call to action for all of us. We shouldn’t shy away from condemning acts of hatred and terrorism. We shouldn’t hesitate to expose and shame those who gathered to express their bigotry for who they are. It’s time for us to stand up for what is right and what is decent and not let hate have a voice in the future of our country and world.
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Scott Thompson is editor of the Barrow News-Journal. He can be reached at sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com.