“Very fine people” (August 15th 2017) is what US President Donald Trump called some of the protesters at the Charlottesville riot of 2017.
Charlottesville riot: In 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia was going to take down its statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general who fought against the US from 1861 to 1865 to uphold the enslavement of Black people. On August 11th and 12th 2017 there were protests for and against the statue. The protests turned violent, leading to the death of Heather Heyer on the 12th.
Three days later at a news conference:
REPORTER: “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest -”
TRUMP: “Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves – and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
Heritage not hate!
Trump later added at that news conference, outside of the sound bite that made the news:
“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists – because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
Pro-Lee protesters: In addition to neo-Nazis and White nationalists there were 3 Percenters and others of the anti-government militia movement protesting in Lee’s defence. But they are not who Trump was thinking of as his “very fine people”:
Trump:
“There were people in that rally – and I looked the night before – if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones.”
He is thinking of when White men marched at night with tiki torches (pictured above) to Lee’s statue on the 11th and chanted over and over again “Jews will not replace us!” It is chilling to watch, yet Trump says only “some” were “bad”. The rest, apparently, were his “very fine people”.
Trump is trying to have it both ways: He wants to “condemn totally” neo-Nazis and White nationalists, and yet calls them “very fine people” too. Which is how he has been with White nationalists all along – he winks and nods at them (they certainly think so) but will condemn them, reluctantly, when cornered by the press.
Scott Adams, who gave us the Dilbert comic strip and now spends his mornings on YouTube spewing Trump propaganda, calls this whole thing the “Fine People” Hoax. He proves it by pointing out that Trump “condemned totally” neo-Nazis and White nationalists. And by pointing out that the New York Times found a pro-Lee protester who said she was not racist.
– Abagond, 2019.
Sources: mainly Google Images (2019); LA Times (August 15th 2017, YouTube video, 11 minutes, of the news conference); PolitiFact (2019 transcript of the news conference); Dilbert.com (2019).
See also:
- Charlottesville riot
- Donald Trump
- US White nationalism
- alt-right – the latest iteration
- The Daily Stormer – helped to organize the Charlottesville protest
- Richard Spencer at UF – Spencer was one of the leaders of the protest
- David Duke – he was there too. Trump has a hard time condemning him too.
- “Heritage not hate”
- sound bite
- Trump Derangement Syndrome – what I suffer from
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“Trump is trying to have it both ways: He wants to “condemn totally” neo-Nazis and White nationalists, and yet calls them “very fine people” too. Which is how he has been with White nationalists all along – he winks and nods at them (they certainly think so) but will condemn them, reluctantly, when cornered by the press.”
That sums it up right there.
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well the census isnt going to have a ‘do you philosophically align with xenophobic hate speech’ but hopefully its a theoretical minority until the next beer hall putsch
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A bunch of white incel losers.
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Many Russian crypto-polititians have made their bet on internal discords in the USA to make America weaker.
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The best place for White riots is Russia. A perfect scene for descendants of White slaves to fight their self-imposed White masters.
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“The best place for White riots is Russia”
no.
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@v8driver
Yep. A riot is the only remedy for scars of Russian slavery.
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