CommentsGUEST WORDS-On the third anniversary of a deadly Charlottesville hate fest that saw tiki-torch-waving white supremacists marching through the streets with swastikas screaming "Seig Heil!" "Blood and Soil!" and "Jews will not replace us!", many argue little has changed, at least not for the better.
The 2017 Unite the Right "rally" was ostensibly organized to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a city with a long racist history, a Jewish mayor and a black vice-mayor.
Because it was really "never about a statue," the event quickly devolved into a savage display of America's dark underbelly by marauding Aryans in chinos and polo shirts - unsurprising, given the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer had celebrated the upcoming event by vowing, "Next stop Charlottesville. Final stop: Auschwitz."
Three years later, Heather Heyer's killer is serving life in prison; several victims of the day's violence, including interfaith clergy, are suing the right-wing organizers in hopes of bankrupting them; a documentary, "Impact of Hate: Charlottesville," tells the story of four survivors and the damage left behind; many still suffer trauma from the day, and the city's ongoing racism; and Robert E. Lee is still there. So, too, is the sad old racist in the White House, who afterwards famously crowed there were "very fine people on both sides," and who since then has gradually upgraded his venomous dog whistle to a scream.
At this point, some argue Trump really should go with it, and just wear his white hood at public appearances.
On Wednesday, he praised a racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic QAnon groupie who won a Georgia primary runoff as "strong on everything" - thus leaving himself with only 7 more words to use - after tweeting the "suburban housewife" would be "thrilled" he ended a program "where low-income housing would invade their neighborhood," tossing Corey Booker in there for a racist, sexist home run.
At his daily deluge of delusional drivel, he doubled down on the virtues of redlining before moving on to rave about our beautifully small number of COVID "fatalities," trash Democratic governors for trying to save constituents' lives by urging them to stay home - “In their prisons! They call ‘em prisons” - and attack Kamala Harris as "nasty," "phony," "a big failure," and "very weak on facts."
This, from a guy who mocks people with disabilities and any woman who scares him, who wears orange makeup, shoe lifts, and a dead ferret on his head, who destroys everything he touches, and who, at last count, has told over 20,000 lies in office.
In truth, argue two new killer anti-Trump ads, "Nothing has changed" - he is and always was a racist loser. Thankfully, we now have adults in the room to challenge him.
At their campaign debut, Harris and Biden entered to Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up," and slayed it. "As somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court," said Harris, "the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut." Shut it, please.
(Abby Zimet writes for the excellent CommonDreams.org, where this piece was first posted.) Photo credit: Some of Trump's very fine people in Charlottesville. Getty Image
-cw
