It should not have taken the death and injury of innocents to move our nation toward moral clarity. It should not have taken President Trump’s disgraceful refusal to condemn white supremacy, bigotry and Nazism to make clear to all who he is and which dark impulses he is willing to exploit to maintain his hold on power.
Thus begins a very powerful Washington Post column by E. J. Dionne titled After Charlottesville: End the denial about Trump.
I suspect we will see other powerful columns in the next few days.
But for now, just parse how much is packed into that opening paragraph
disgraceful refusal
who he is
dark impulses he is willing to exploit to maintain his hold on power
There is so much more, including the necessity of those of us who are White to give witness against the white supremacy, bigotry and Nazism.
Dionne also write
There are not, as Trump insisted Saturday, “many sides” to questions that were settled long ago: Racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination and white supremacy are unequivocally wrong.
And then comes a sentence, standing by itself, that is crystal clear:
A president who cannot bring himself to say this immediately and unequivocally squanders any claim to moral leadership.
Indeed.
If the column stopped there, it would be powerful enough.
But there is so much more.
He quotes Peter Wehner, a “veteran of three Republican administrations” as being sick and tired of privately wincing Republicans . Wehner tweeted “It’s a self-incriminating silence.” to which Dionne responds simply and clearly: Yes it is.
But he goes further. Please read the next two paragraphs:
The proper response is for Democrats and Republicans willing to take a stand to force a vote in Congress condemning the president for his opportunistic obtuseness and making clear where the vast majority of Americans stand on white supremacy. This is important for many reasons, but especially to send a message to America’s minorities that whites are willing to do more than offer rote condemnations of racism.
For make no mistake: No matter how accurate it is to say that neo-Nazis and Klansmen represent a repugnant fringe, the fact that our president has consistently and successfully exploited white racial resentment cannot help but be taken by citizens of color as a sign of racism’s stubborn durability.
There is much more to this powerful column.
I have all but exhausted what I can quote.
Please, go read the column.
You can get there freely from the link in the following tweet by Dionne:
And then the final paragraph will truly serve as a culmination to a magnificent column:
The rest of us, however, have a larger obligation to our country and to racial justice. As the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer might suggest, it is time to ask about Trump: When will we become sick and tired of being sick and tired?
Please, go read the column and pass it on to others.