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Summer Games for the Resistance

What would the Resistance and the NeverTrumpers do without white supremacists and neo-nazis? Well, a lot, actually: and that’s what they’ve been doing ever since Donald Trump won the election. They even call themselves the Resistance. They are resisting a duly elected president: they write editorials in the nation’s major newspapers and news networks, and they stonewall the president’s actions in Washington. Those activities of the Resistance have real consequences. They affect the political business of the nation. They impede the operation of our democratically elected government.

Line them up against a handful of nasty people promoting white supremacy and neo-nazism and it puts—or to any fair-minded person should put—the president’s statements about the weekend events in Charlottesville, Virginia in perspective.

Which is not to suggest—obviously—that there should be any condoning of the killings or the violence that occurred there. And, of course, there hasn’t been.

But the Resistance was not satisfied with the wording of the president’s statement in response to the weekend events. This was President Trump’s first response: “We condemn in the strong possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

The anti-Trump complaint is that by saying “many sides” the president failed to limit his condemnation to the white supremacists. And that is true. But why shouldn’t he condemn all violence? Do we believe that attacking white supremacists is okay?

According to the New York Times:

In Charlottesville, established groups like the local chapter of Black Lives Matter, as well as liberal and anarchist groups, started planning their response in June when activists learned that the Ku Klux Klan would be marching in the city … said Nathan Moore …. “It’s been a real summer of hate here.”

In a “real summer of hate” it might seem like a good idea to condemn all violence.

Nathan Moore, you may be interested to know, is (the Times reports) a member of the steering committee of Together Cville, a Resistance group that formed shortly after the presidential election.

Suppose no one had shown up to oppose the crackpot white supremacists and confront them? Put otherwise, if a tree falls in the forest and the New York Times and CNN fail to cover the event, did it really happen? And is there, therefore, any danger to the body politic?

According to the Times, Laura Goldblatt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia, said that some kind of response in the street was necessary because history has shown that “ignoring white supremacy, in terms of shutting your doors and not coming out to confront them, has been a really dangerous strategy.”

Really? Do sentient people actually think that white supremacists and neo-nazis constitute a serious danger to the United States of America?

President Trump’s second statement was more inclusive in its condemnation: “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.”

It is true that President Trump probably should have led with that statement, if only to have made it more difficult for the Left to posture. But Trump is not yet finely attuned to the wicked ways of Washington and the Left-wing Resistance.

Remember that the Left, when the Black Lives Matter movement became popular, was—or pretended to be—offended when others said that all lives matter. Inclusiveness is a one-way street, apparently.

What’s going on here, obviously, is that the Resistance is trying to link the Trump Administration to whatever hate groups are successful in getting national attention. The New York Times even went so far as to opine that Trump has “embraced” the hate groups. And the more attention the media can give to hate groups, the more they can use them to attempt to discredit President Trump.

Nevertheless, it is fair to say the president’s first response could have been stronger.

That being said, when Merck Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council, saying he was taking a stand against intolerance and extremism, President Trump tweeted: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

It’s a bit of a stretch to say that the whole Leftist attack on the president over the Charlottesville business was worth the opportunity to get off that tweet. But if the Resistance wonders why Trump remains popular with his people, they should study his reaction to adversity.

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About Daniel Oliver

Daniel Oliver is chairman of the board of the Education and Research Institute and a director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was executive editor and subsequently chairman of the board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. Email him at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.