![]() ![]() If you didn’t break with Donald Trump for Charlottesville, then basically you were saying, “We’re done.” So that was a-the acquiescence of Republicans after Charlottesville, I think, was really an inflection point. Get them out of the movement.” Well, those folks were being brought back into the political mainstream by Donald Trump, and Charlottesville was the moment.Īnd the other point that was crucial was when the Republican Party didn’t push back, that was the moment you realized that their-their surrender was complete, that they were not ever going to stand against him. said, “Look, if we’re going to have a conservative movement, we need to excommunicate the John Birchers and the Klansmen and the anti-Semites. And you know, look, conservative Republicans have wrestled with this for a very, very long time. Or these were allies that were useful, and you didn’t want to alienate them.īut again, in 2016, this was one of the things that people warned about: that Donald Trump had this dark alliance with people on the far right. And even when it goes wrong, even when it turns ugly, he’s unwilling to denounce it, because at some point in his mind or in the mind of Steve Bannon, these were allies. ![]() You have a president of the United States who is willing to give tacit approval to some of the darkest elements of American politics. So when Charlottesville happened, you could easily say the same thing that you could say about Jan. So the alliance between Donald Trump and his willingness to use these "alt-right" activists from the dark corners of the fever swamps was not a new development. He gave them a “wink, wink.” He would go on some of the conspiracy theory shows, their podcasts. Even during the campaign, Donald Trump’s flirtation with white supremacist organizations and the “alt-right” was a real problem. It felt like it, because Charlottesville was a long time coming. How important is that moment, Charlottesville? How big a warning shot was it? …ĬJS: I’m really glad you’re asking this, first of all, because I really feel that what happened last week was very much like Charlottesville. But the rest of the-McConnell, Pence, basically were quiet or supportive. And so the Jeff Flakes of the world and the Corkers of the world were batted down pretty harshly. There were some complaints, and those people got attacked, because Donald Trump would not back off. Here we have the president saying some pretty outrageous stuff and very little blowback from it. The reaction of the GOP to this is interesting. Here’s a partial transcript from the interview that took place in January 2021 :įRONTLINE: Charlottesville. ICYMI: A powerful new documentary from PBS’s Frontline features commentary from Mona Charen, Bill Kristol, and yours truly. ![]() WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Days after Democratic President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech attacking former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies as an extremist threat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump's movement is undermining democracy.įifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll - including one in four Republicans - said Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement is threatening America's democratic foundations. On our radar: A big vote on same-sex marriage appears set in the Senate new worries about the Queen’s health California’s green energy crisis Steve Bannon does a perp walk (again) and a new poll finds that most Americans see Trump's MAGA as threat to democracy. It’s worth remembering that DJT will never, ever, under any circumstances acknowledge the legitimacy of any electoral defeat. Exit take: Trump’s facts were, of course, wrong back then, as they are now. ![]()
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