Response to The Birth of a New Nation

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Birth of a New Nation)

Okay, it’s a little complicated. We need to parse it a bit:

TRUMP (answering reporters’ questions): Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at [indiscernible] – excuse me – what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

What about this? What about the fact that they came charging – they came charging with clubs in their hands swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.

As far as I’m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day. Wait a minute, I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake news. That was a horrible day.

I will tell you something. I watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it. And you had, you had a group on one side that was bad. And you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now. You had a group – you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent. 

(I could just listen to this nitwit talk all day long!)

Still, he makes a good point!

On the one hand, you had a group that drove a car into a crowd of protestors, injuring about twenty and killing one of them; on the other hand, you had another group — equally bad! — that came in charging without a permit!

Both bad? I don’t know, you be the judge!

But levity aside, it should be noted that Trump somehow got his “alt-left” mixed up with his “Antifa”:

Antifa is a far-left, anarchist political movement of autonomous, self-described anti-fascist groups in the United States. The term is loosely used with anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, as well as Anarchism and anti-capitalism. 

According to The Economist, the "word Antifa has its roots in Anti-Fascist Action, a name taken up by European political movements in the 1930s" and which was revived in the 1990s, particularly in Germany. 

Peter Beinart writes that "In the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism.” 

They are known for militant protest tactics, including property damage and, sometimes, physical violence.

Note that last part, about “physical violence”.

It’s been said that the Antifa is like any typical leftist anti-rightwing group, but without the snowflakes, who argue that the anti-violence approach of the past has failed. So no, Trump was not imagining it when he saw the counter-protestors on Saturday sometime being the aggressors.

And yes, in all the hoo-hah about the violence in Charlottesville for the past several days, there’s been very little mention of “Antifa”. I’m guessing that’s because it would step on all the agreement we see from both sides, that you shouldn’t be shy about blaming the white-national racists for starting the whole thing.

Which is true, but what is also true is that you shouldn’t be shy about telling the whole truth about all this, that being that,

(1) while the violent tactics can justifiably be blamed on both sides,

(2) only one side are the actual bad guys.

In other words, when it comes to assessing  the relative despisability of the “causes” — that is, "racist white superiority" vs “not” — nobody, of either party, even Republican, should feel embarrassed or ashamed to come out in favor of Enlightened Western Civilization.

Both causes are opinions, and as such are equally protected by the Constitution, but they aren’t really equal in the sense of being what America wants to be. We Americans may disagree with how to get there, but once we arrive, we all want to be the good guys.

Got it?

So is the Trump administration as naive about Antifa as it seems? Maybe not:

In what is shaping up to be a contentious battle over privacy rights and free speech, the Department of Justice has formally requested that web hosting firm ‘DreamHost’ turn over 1.3 million IP addresses and other information to ‘unmask‘ visitors to the anti-Trump Antifa website ‘disruptj20.org,’ as part of the investigation into crimes committed on and around January 20 by protesters. DreamHost has challenged the request, claiming the scope of data requested violates the first and fourth amendments because it is too broad. 

DisruptJ20.org was registered in October of 2016 by the ‘DC Anti-fascist Coalition,’ and promoted along with the hashtag #DisruptJ20, as a central resource for anti-Trump protesters to coordinate various plots over social media intended disrupt the presidential inauguration on and around January 20. 

The website connected users through mailing lists and planned meet-ups, and provided a calendar of anarchistic events as well as resources to help people prepare for the mayhem. The site also provides a ‘legal guide’ for those arrested.

The article goes on about those violent activities at the swearing-in in Washington, that "after inauguration related chaos, organized and coordinated in large part through the DisruptJ20 website, 230 ‘black-bloc‘ protesters were arrested and subsequently indicted on felony rioting charges after the “anti-fascists” rioted in the streets – smashing storefronts, setting a limousine on fire, and injuring six police officers.”

So yeah, “Antifa” violence is really a thing.

Still, speaking of not being able to tell the difference, there was also this:

TRUMP: George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down – excuse me. Are we going to take down, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue?

Someone needs to tell Donald that one not only needs to know his American history, one has to understand it. But he also needs to know his current affairs:

Governments all over the South are not taking down statues of people because they were slave-owners, but because they were Confederates!

To help you understand the difference, General George Washington fought for the United States of America, while General Robert E. Lee fought against it!

And not only did Lee fight against America, he fought in defense of a nation slapped together by states who seceded almost exclusively to preserve the “rights” of their citizens to own human beings, a practice that even white Southerners of the time were concluding was evil and would not be surviving for long. 

In fact, the existence in town squares across the South of the symbols of an American enemy nation has, to me, always been a bit weird — just part of the extraordinarily generous efforts that we, the victors, took to welcome them home, I guess.

But once the nation realized the pain that the Confederate legacy caused to the true victims of the Civil War — the slaves, and the descendants of slaves — it came to its senses and realized that, it was one thing to remember your ugly heritage, but it was another to celebrate it in the public square. It was time for the celebrations to end.

I heard Don Lemon, a black CNN anchor, ask the other day, can you imagine being Jewish, living in post-war Germany as a kid, going to Joseph Goebbels Middle School, and after you graduate from there, attending Adolf Hitler High? That’s what it was like for him, he said, growing up in the South.

Does Donald Trump realize this? Probably not, but he’s got a very good excuse: He was born with the brain of a lizard! He can’t help being unlearnable!

I’m starting to sound like a broken record in an echo chamber. I’m getting out of here.