August 14, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- The white supremacist march at the University
of Virginia is an affront to democracy in the
United States, says DW's Jefferson Chase. In his
view, it shows the true ugly face of the bigoted
Trump minority in the US.
I did my doctorate at the University of Virginia
and used to sit reading books where on
Friday people with torches held a KKK-style
rally, replete with racist and Nazi slogans. In
case you have a short memory, this is what I'm
talking about.
These scenes took place on the central campus
quadrangle that people at UVA, with charming
Southern understatement, simply call The Lawn.
The building in the background is the Rotunda,
designed by Thomas Jefferson - the university
founder, principal author of the Declaration of
Independence and third president of the United
States.
"Mister
Jefferson," as folks in Charlottesville still
call the patron of the university and their
city, was a complex figure. He was a slave owner
who thought that slavery was a temporarily
necessary moral evil. Yet he still wrote the
words: "All men are created equal."
So it
particularly turned my stomach to see
Jefferson's university and ideas verbally
defecated upon by people of no moral or
intellectual complexity whatever, by fanatics
whose only outlet for an aggression they don't
even understand is hatred of those who seem
different. Anyone else feel reminded of 9/11?
"We in
America do not have government by the
majority," Jefferson once wrote. "We have
government by the majority who
participate." Except that America doesn't have
that right now. The events in Charlottesville
this weekend are another example of the right
wing's desire to overrule the wishes of the
majority.
Answer:
The decision by the democratically elected
government of Charlottesville, supported by the
vast majority of residents, to remove a statue
of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The real
message of Unite the Right, despite all the
bellowing, is not: "You will not replace
us." It's: "We want to replace the majority."
How did
America sink this low? You don't need a PhD from
UVA, or anywhere else for that matter, to answer
that question. For seven months, a president
elected against the will of the majority who
participated has laid out a model for a new,
dumber, more bigoted America in regular
140-character discharges of bilious nonsense.
The Donald has shown the dimwits how it's done
- on a daily basis.
And
speaking of alliteration, it's no surprise that
this president, otherwise so quick with "locked
and loaded" or "fire and fury" threats, has been
so lame, indeed flaccid, in his response to the
white supremacists. The people who think up his
sound bites know better than to challenge the
racist right that put Trump over the top in the
Electoral College. And that emboldens the
stupid. Trump has indeed made America hate
again.
"If a
nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a
state of civilization, it expects what never was
and never will be," Jefferson wrote. Or to put
the matter into terms Trump is more likely to
understand: You own the Nazi flags and thugs
beating people with nightsticks, Mr. President.
These are your people. As white supremacist
David Duke said in Charlottesville, "We are
going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."
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Sad, so
sad. Even self-proclaimed staunch conservatives
like Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch have rightly
criticized Trump for his response to
Charlottesville and explicitly condemned
right-wing extremism.
But
words are one thing. Deeds are another. "Action
will define and delineate you,” as Jefferson
once said. So here's the question to
Representative Ryan, Senator Hatch and the rest
of the Republican members of Congress: What
action are you going to take in future? Are you
going to stick up for America's democratic
traditions and fight its enemies or are you
going to cravenly serve your new master?
"If God
is just, I tremble for my country,” Jefferson
once confessed. It was hard for me not to think
of those words by my namesake as I watched
police officers not intervening in street brawls
a stone's throw from one of America's most
venerable universities and a place close to my
heart.
By
contrast, I admired the counterprotesters,
Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer and
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe for opposing
the march of the would-be members of the master
race.
It's
time for everyone who gives a tinker's damn
about America to follow their example. As things
stand now, Mister Jefferson is rolling over in
his grave.
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