It was a memo that could have been written by Joseph Goebbels—Adolf Hitler’s brilliant and fanatical Minister of Propaganda.
The only difference: This memo was written in English, not German.
Joseph Goebbels
The memo was released by the White House on the evening of August 15. Earlier that day, President Donald Trump had given a fiery, impromptu press conference defending white extremist groups.
This, in turn, had been prompted by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi violence that exploded in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend of August 12-13.
Trump’s incendiary remarks laying blame on both violent Fascists and non-violent protesters had ignited anger throughout the nation. And they caused many Republicans—in a rare show of claimed moral outrage—to publicly break with the President.
Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin tweeted: “We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.”
Paul Ryan
Arizona’s Republican United States Senator, Jeff Flake, released a statement on August 15: “We cannot accept excuses for white supremacy and acts of domestic terrorism. We must condemn them. Period.”
And John McCain, Arizona’s other Republican Senator, took to twitter on the same evening: “There is no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so.”
Faced with such overwhelming condemnation, Donald Trump did what he always does when faced with criticism: He leaned on others to defend him.
On the evening of August 15, the White House sent out official “talking points” to Republican members of Congress.
The memo urged them to say that Trump was “entirely correct” that “both sides of the violence in Charlottesville acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.”
With unintended irony, the memo claimed that Trump “has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to ‘rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.'”
Left out of this statement were the following truths:
Love has nothing to do with:
- Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen who march down streets—as they did in Charlottesville—shouting: “Jews will not replace us!” and “Blood and soil!”
- Columns of angry-faced men strutting down streets, yelling, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
- Hordes of heavily armed men—carrying shields, clubs, pistols and even automatic rifles—terrorizing the local citizenry.
And loyalty does not have anything to do with:
- Those who proudly brandish Nazi swastika flags. Of the Nazis’ ultimate legacy, historian Klaus Fischer writes: “The Nazis’ New Order was little more than a slave empire, a vast system of organized oppression, exploitation, and extermination.”
- People who proudly carry flags of the Confederacy, which gave the United States its greatest case of mass treason. From 1861 to 1865, members of this group waged war against a legitimately-elected government. And the reason for that Confederacy: To maintain and expand a slave empire of millions of black men, women and children.
Here is the White House memo:
NEWS OF THE DAY
Charlottesville
- The President was entirely correct — both sides of the violence in Charlottesville acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.
- Despite the criticism, the President reaffirmed some of our most important Founding principles: We are equal in the eyes of our Creator, equal under the law, and equal under our Constitution.
- He has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to “rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.”
- He called for the end of violence on all sides so that no more innocent lives would be lost.
- The President condemned – with no ambiguity – the hate groups fueled by bigotry and racism over the weekend, and did so by name yesterday, but for the media that will never be enough.
- The media reacted with hysteria to the notion that counter-protesters showed up with clubs spoiling for a fight, a fact that reporters on the ground have repeatedly stated.
- Even a New York Times reporter tweeted that she “saw club-wielding “antifa” beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”
- The local ACLU chapter also tweeted that
- We should not overlook the facts just because the media finds them inconvenient:
- From cop killing and violence at political rallies, to shooting at Congressmen at a practice baseball game, extremists on the left have engaged in terrible acts of violence.
- The President is taking swift action to hold violent hate groups accountable.
- The DOJ has opened a civil rights investigation into this weekend’s deadly car attack.
- Last Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had completed the largest prosecution of white supremacists in the nation’s history.
- Leaders and the media in our country should join the president in trying to unite and heal our country rather than incite more division.
* * * * *
Many of those who oppose the goals of the Trump administration are now taking partial comfort in the sheer incompetence of the President.
He has always felt free to display his hatred, egomania and dictatorial nature. He has never been able to apologize or admit error.
As a real estate mogul, he could get away with such behavior in relative privacy. As President, these traits have turned into his worst enemies.
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TRUMP: SPITTING ON THE GRAVES AT ARLINGTON
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 21, 2017 at 12:08 amThe ancient historian, Plutarch, warned: “And the most glorious episodes do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
“Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles.”
On August 15, President Donald Trump gave just such an example.
He did so by equating Nazis, Ku Klux Klamsmen and other white supremacists with those who protested against them in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend of August 12-13.
Donald Trump
“I think there is blame on both sides,” said Trump in an impromptu press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower, in Manhattan, New York.
“I will tell you something. I watched those very closely, much more closely than you people [news media] watched it. And 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 on the other side [those opposing the white supremacists] that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent….
“Well, I do think there’s blame. Yes, I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there is blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it. And you [news media] don’t have doubt about it either.”
Apparently, some of Trump’s fellow Republicans do doubt there was blame on both sides.
“There’s no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so,” tweeted Arizona Senator John McCain.
“Through his statements yesterday,” said South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, “President Trump took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally and people like Ms. Heyer. I, along with many others, do not endorse this moral equivalency.”
Heather Heyer was the 32-year-old paralegal who was killed on August 13 when a car plowed into a crowd protesting a white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. Nineteen others were injured in the incident.
“Mr. President, you can’t allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame. They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain,” Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio tweeted.
And Arizona’s other Senator, Jeff Flake, tweeted: “We can’t accept excuses for white supremacy & acts of domestic terrorism. We must condemn. Period.”
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who had opposed Trump as a Presidential candidate in 2016, said on NBC’s “Today Show”:
“This is terrible. The President of the United States needs to condemn these kinds of hate groups. The President has to totally condemn this. It’s not about winning an argument.”
John Kasich
During the Presidential primaries, Kasich had run an ad comparing Trump to Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler:
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
That point was forcibly driven home on the night of August 11.
That was when hundreds of torch-bearing Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists marched on the University of Virginia campus.
Their faces twisted with hatred, they repeatedly shouted:
“You will not replace us!”
“Jews will not replace us!”
“Blood and soil!”
“Whose streets? Our streets!”
For the vast majority of Americans, such scenes had existed only in newsreel footage of torch-bearing columns of Nazi stormtroopers flooding the streets of Hitler’s Germany.
The fall of Nazi Germany came 72 years ago—on May 7, 1945. Today, veterans of World War II are rapidly dying off.
But their sons and daughters are still alive to pass on, secondhand, the necessary for standing up to such barbarism.
And so can films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List.”
At the end of “Saving Private Ryan,” a dying Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) tells Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) whose life he has saved: “Earn this.”
A dying Captain Miller tells Ryan: “Earn this.”
Returning to Miller’s burial site in France decades later, an elderly Ryan speaks reverently to the white cross over Miller’s grave:
“Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.”
Those are sentiments wasted on those who mounted the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
And they are equally wasted on a President who condemns those who stand up to Fascism.
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