{"id":115830,"date":"2020-04-24T00:17:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T07:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=115830"},"modified":"2020-04-21T16:42:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T23:42:17","slug":"disproving-the-lie-that-trump-did-not-call-neo-nazis-very-fine-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2020\/04\/disproving-the-lie-that-trump-did-not-call-neo-nazis-very-fine-people.html","title":{"rendered":"Disproving the Lie that Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis “Very Fine People”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ever since Donald Trump called people marching under the banner of the swastika at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally \u201cvery fine people\u201d the MAGA Cult has done what it perpetually does, deny reality and declare he did no such thing.\u00a0 Somebody tried to deny this reality to the doggedly honest and thorough Deacon Steven Greydanus, which is always a huge blunder.\u00a0 Here is his reply to that bare-faced lie.\u00a0 It is fitting that a Catholic deacon so this because, to the lasting shame of the American Catholic communion, it is self-proclaimed \u201cFaith conservative Catholics\u201d, as well as Evangelicals and many Orthodox who stain and blacken the witness of the gospel with their deathless support for this filth.\u00a0 That is why it is the duty of all those who defend the gospel to oppose this filth loudly and publicly, lest God\u2019s name be blasphemed among the Gentiles and it be supposed by any that this filth is, in any way, compatible with the teaching of Christ or Holy Church.\u00a0 Deacon Greydanus does a fine job calling these lies out when he writes:<\/p>\n

First, some background. The Unite the Right was the third<\/em>\u00a0white-identity demonstration at Charlottesville within four months, following\u00a0rallies led by Richard Spencer in May and the KKK rally in July \u2014 all around the same statue.<\/p>\n

Check out the marketing materials produced for the rally by its organizers. Look at the flyer below, with the clear Nazi associations of the imagery and design.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at some of those names of the speakers on this flyer:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

* Richard Spencer, of course, needs no introduction. Less violent than some of his fellow speakers, he advocates a \u201cpeaceful ethnic cleansing\u201d and the creation of a white separatist ethnostate.<\/p>\n

* White nationalist Mike Enoch has a podcast called The Daily Shoah (yes, you read that right). Every time you see someone with triple parens around their names (Google it if you aren\u2019t familiar with its antisemitic implications and subsequent subversion by anti-antisemites), you\u2019re witnessing one of Enoch\u2019s contributions to contemporary cultural dialogue.<\/p>\n

* Jason Kessler, the rally organizer, was kicked out of the Proud Boys for his views on race. (Kessler nevertheless invited the founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, to participate, but he was unwilling \u201cto be associated with explicit neo-Nazis.\u201d The Proud Boys are self-described \u201cWestern chauvinists\u201d who are pro-Trump and pro-Southern culture, but disavow racism.)<\/p>\n

* Baked Alaska is known, according to Gizmodo, for retweeting \u201cvideos of his friends saying that \u2018Hitler did nothing wrong'\u201d and \u201cimages of people in gas chambers.\u201d He talks a lot about \u201cwhite genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Shock jock Christopher Cantwell tepidly endorsed Trump for president, complaining that he would have preferred a candidate \u201ca lot more racist than Donald Trump\u201d who \u201cdoes not give his daughter to a Jew.\u201d He was a little blunter in a more recent interview: \u201cLet\u2019s f\u2014ing gas the kikes and have a race war.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Matt Heimbach is the founder of a group that advocates the creation of a white separatist ethnostate. Unlike Spencer, Heimbach has no problem aligning with violent ideologies as long as the violence is directed against \u201crace-mixers, homosexuals, abortionists and Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Pax Dickson is the most seemingly mainstream name on the flyer. He wrote for Business Insider a few years ago but was forced out due to derogatory tweets about women and feminism. I don\u2019t know much about him; his willingness to appear alongside the other people listed here is the worst thing I know about him.<\/p>\n

* Dr. Michael Hill is the co-founder president of the League of the South, a \u201cSouthern secession\u201d group. He is an explicit white supremacist who defends slavery.<\/p>\n

* Augustus Sol Invictus (right, he\u2019s got a neopagan thing going on, like the Nazis) is a Holocaust denier and a promoter of eugenics. (His name is on another version of this flyer.)<\/p>\n

Can you name a single group that participated in, supported, or organized for Unite the Right that wasn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0a white-identity group? Who on earth that wasn\u2019t a rabid racist would agree to have anything to do with these people?<\/p>\n

By August, anyone paying attention should have known exactly what the Unite the Right rally was about. On the theory that some naive, non-racist conservatives stumbled into the rally without knowing what it was really about and who was participating, how long do you think they would have gone along with it?<\/p>\n

\u201cVery fine people\u201d don\u2019t do that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s review what President Trump said.<\/p>\n

The president actually issued THREE responses to Charlottesville over four days: on Saturday, August 12; on Monday, August 14; and on Tuesday, August 15.<\/p>\n

His FIRST statement, on Saturday, we might charitably hope was the kind of not entirely informed statement some of his defenders have supposed. This was the statement where he blamed bigotry and violence \u201con many sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backlash to this statement over the next two days was tremendous. So on Monday Trump issued a SECOND response, a prepared speech (written for him, obviously) in which he unequivocally condemned racism, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.<\/p>\n

By the time this second statement was issued on Monday, one would hope and expect that Trump or at least his advisors would have made it their business to ensure that the president was adequately informed on this issue and specifically on the nature of the rally in Charlottesville, based on two days of backlash in response to the first statement.<\/p>\n

But then the next day, on Tuesday, Trump issued a THIRD statement reverting to and defending his original statement. IT WAS IN THIS THIRD STATEMENT that Trump made the remark about \u201cvery fine people\u201d on both sides.<\/p>\n

Ironically, in this third statement he also referred TWELVE TIMES to the importance of getting or knowing \u201cthe facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why he waited until Saturday to make his first statement, Trump replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct. Not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement. But you don\u2019t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You [journalists] still don\u2019t know the facts. And it\u2019s a very, very important process to me. And it\u2019s a very important statement. So I don\u2019t want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement. I want to know the facts\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Later he said,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts. This event just happened. In fact, a lot of the event didn\u2019t even happen yet, as we were speaking. This event just happened. Before I make a statement, I need the facts. So I don\u2019t want to rush into a statement\u2026But unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on and on and on like this, about the importance of knowing the facts, and how he waited until Saturday to be sure of getting the facts and making a correct statement.<\/p>\n

Again, this was on TUESDAY, AFTER the backlash to his Saturday statement, and AFTER making the second statement unequivocally condemning racism, white supremacists and Nazis.<\/p>\n

And it was in THIS third statement that he said \u201cyou also had people that were very fine people on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, at that point, after two days of backlash to his first statement, after the second, scripted statement, and after all his bloviating about the importance of getting the facts for this Saturday statement, Trump clearly had every reason to know the truth about who he was calling \u201cvery fine people.\u201d<\/p>\n

QED.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since Donald Trump called people marching under the banner of the swastika at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally \u201cvery fine people\u201d the MAGA Cult has done what it perpetually does, deny reality and declare he did no such thing.\u00a0 Somebody tried to deny this reality to the doggedly honest and thorough Deacon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[890],"class_list":["post-115830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-americhristian-cult-of-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nDisproving the Lie that Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis "Very Fine People"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ever since Donald Trump called people marching under the banner of the swastika at the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally "very fine people" the\" 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