AMP Report - August 12, 2017
White supremacists celebrate President Trump's
muddy remarks about the Charlottesville riots
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
White nationalists and neo-Nazis celebrated President Donald Trump's remarks about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday (August 12), in which he denounced violence "on all sides" rather than explicitly condemning white supremacism, the Business Insider reported.
The founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website that considers itself a part of the alt-right, celebrated the fact that Trump "outright refused to disavow" the white nationalist rally and movement, the Business Insider said adding:
"People saying he cucked are shills and kikes," wrote the founder, Andrew Anglin. "He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room."
"Cuck" is short for "cuckservative" — a portmanteau of "cuckold" and "conservative" used by the alt-right to describe white Republicans "who are participating in the displacement of European Americans," according to white nationalist Richard Spencer.
"Trump comments were good," said another Daily Stormer commenter. "He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate... on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters."
The commenter continued: "There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him."
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides," Trump said at a press conference. "On many sides."
Many were quick to criticize the president for failing to denounce the "Unite the Right" rally held by white nationalists on Friday in response to a plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville.
Many critics — including Republicans — slammed Trump for not explicitly calling out the white nationalists in Virginia, noting that one woman was killed when a car drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, and calling it a "terror attack."
A New Generation of White Supremacists Emerges in Charlottesville
The white supremacist forces arrayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend — the largest gathering of its sort in at least a generation — represented a new incarnation of the white supremacy movement, Pro-Republica reported Sunday adding:
"Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent. Instead, the ranks of the young men who drove to Charlottesville with clubs, shields, pepper spray and guns included many college-educated people who have left the political mainstream in favor of extremist ideologies over the past few years. A large number have adopted a very clean cut, frat-boyish look designed to appeal to the average white guy in a way that KKK robes or skinhead regalia never could. Interviews show that at least some of these leaders have spent time in the U.S. armed forces.
"Many belong to new organizations like Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, the Traditionalist Workers Party and True Cascadia, which have seen their numbers expand dramatically in the past year. Most of these groups view themselves as part of a broader “alt-right” movement that represents the extreme edge of right-wing politics in the U.S.
ProRepublica reported earlier that that the white supremacists who arrived in Charlottesville on Saturday “had spent months openly planning for war”:
The Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website, encouraged rally attendees to bring shields, pepper spray, and fascist flags and flagpoles. A prominent racist podcast told its listeners to come carrying guns. “Bring whatever you need, that you feel you need for your self defense. Do what you need to do for security of your own person,” said Mike “Enoch” Peinovich on The Right Stuff podcast.
And the white supremacists who showed up in Charlottesville did indeed come prepared for violence. Many wore helmets and carried clubs, medieval-looking round wooden shields, and rectangular plexiglass shields, similar to those used by riot police.
Charlottesville riots irrefutably rooted in racism
The violence in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday at the “Unite the Right” protest against the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was irrefutably rooted in racism, and bore disgusting echoes of Nazism, the Los Angeles Times said adding, for evidence, look no further than the Hitlerian “blood and soil” and “Jews won’t replace us” chants during a pre-protest rally Friday night by a Tiki torch-bearing parade of overwhelmingly white men.
Writing under the title "Trump bears some responsibility for the racism on display in Charlottesville," the LAT editorial said: "And to erase further doubt, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke watched the violence unfold Saturday and declared that the white supremacy movement — which is what he represents — was at “a turning point.” Added Duke, “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”
The LAT argued that the violence in Charlottesville clearly was the product of the rise of racism as a political force in this country. "It’s easy to blame the hatred and divisiveness that spilled out of the Trump campaign. But truth be told, he tapped into a current of American political and social beliefs that has been around for generations."
Trump, to his detriment, has emboldened this rise. He missed a sterling opportunity to strike a different, more presidential, note Saturday with a milquetoast condemnation that failed to call out the racism that propelled Friday’s march and Saturday’s violence, the LAT editorial concluded.
Hundreds of white nationalists, including neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white-supremacist groups, descended on Charlottesville on Friday and Saturday, many carrying flags with swastikas and other racist logos and chanting Nazi slogans like “Blood and soil!” Rally attendees, carrying torches, also marched across the mostly-empty campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on Friday night.
The white-nationalist rally also attracted counter-protesters, and when rally attendees attempted to march in Charlottesville on Saturday morning, they were met by those protesters, leading to violent clashes.
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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
