Tuesday, August 15, 2017

What did Donald Trump do today?

He shored up his base.

Here is a sample of the favorable reactions to Trump's impromptu press conference today.

  • David Duke's wikipedia entry accurately describes him as "a white nationalist, politician, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, convicted felon, and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan."



  • Richard Spencer, also a white nationalist, coined the term "alt-right." He toasted Trump's victory with a Nazi salute and a cheer of "Heil Trump!" He later elaborated on that thought: "Trump has opened the door to nationalism in this country — not American nationalism but the white race. Once that door has fully swung open, you can’t close it."



  • Jack Posobiec, whom Trump approvingly retweeted yesterday, was the director of Citizens for Trump during the campaign, and was granted a press pass to cover the White House. He also helped promote and apparently actually believed the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, which held that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement of a DC-area pizza place. (He was thrown out of the restaurant for barging in on a child's birthday party, but was not the person who ultimately shot up the walls looking for the non-existent basement.)


Duke and Spencer were present in Charlottesville. The overall thesis of Trump's statements today was that there were "some very fine people" among the neo-Nazis and Klansmen who marched on that city prior to the terrorist murder of a counter-protestor.

So?

  • If a president says something that makes Klansmen, white nationalists, and conspiracy theorists this happy, he's done something terribly wrong.
  • People who voted for Trump who do not want to expel non-whites and Jews from the United States may have thought that Trump would have the courage to offend people who did.
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