James Alex Fields Jr. marched in Charlottesville, Va., with Richard Spencer, David Duke and the KKK, whose heritage is lynching black people. He wore the clothes, and carried the shields and symbols, of a white supremacist organization whose “manifesto” is, “Our America is to be a nation exclusively for the White American peoples who, out of the barren hills, empty plains and vast mountains forged the most powerful nation to ever have existed,” (a manifesto that ignores the systematic slaughter and subjugation of the conquered Native Americans).
He then drove his car into a crowd of individuals who disagreed with the supremacist ethos his actions supported.
If Fields had been Muslim, President Trump would have condemned him as a terrorist in the harsh, bombastic flurry of tweets that we have come to expect from the president.
Instead, there was no bombastic condemnation, but an initial failure to speak, and then a short statement seemingly blaming the injured and the dead for enticing Fields to mow down their “side.”
By failing to condemn this terrorist action, and the manifesto that fostered it, the president emboldens the white supremacist movement and fails our vibrantly diverse democracy. We deserve better from our president.
