In an era of Islamist this and Islamist that it is best to remember that there are other threats.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA — The Presidency of Donald Trump sure has been, um, interesting, hasn’t it. Not a day goes by without an, um, interesting tweet or comment or new scientific discovery by the Donald. I would say that this has been, um, entertaining, but I think that would underplay just how much of a disaster the past four years have been, for Americans and many more.
This president has said so many, many, many silly things that it is impossible to keep track. He has also said a lot of things that are simply not true. According to the Washington Post, President Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years. 16, 241 ‘lies’ and partial lies.
Sigh.
One of the most egregious things he has said – and that is indeed sayings something – was “You also had some very fine people on both sides” in reference to a bunch of neo-Nazi white supremacists and those opposing them in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. Some of the ‘fine people’ on the far right were chanting ““blood and soil,” which happens to be the English translation of a Nazi slogan. Yep, sounds like a darn right fine group of folk to me.
On this day in 2017
One of the men seen marching with the fascist group American Vanguard, James A. Fields, deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old counter-protester Heather Heyer on August 12. A little less than two years later he pleaded guilty to 29 of 30 federal hate crimes under a deal with prosecutors who agreed not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison. He said he was sorry.
Fields was a self-described neo-Nazi from Ohio who said he thought about harming others while driving to the Charlottesville rally. There was evidence on his social media profiles of him “expressing support of the social and racial policies of Adolf Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, including the Holocaust”.
Somehow I don’t think sorry is going to cut it (although the victim’s father, in an incredible show of magnanimity, forgave him). Nor am I waiting with bated breath for Mr. Trump’s apology for, well for just about everything he as said over the last four years.
