Official talking points
Yesterday evening the White House sent out its usual daily notes.
Every day, the White House communications office sends official talking points to Republican members of Congress. These communiqués help the GOP stay on the same page (and, in the Trump era, help the embattled president’s allies come up with arguments in his defense).
On Tuesday evening, a few hours after the president’s inflammatory press conference defending white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, the office issued an “evening communications briefing,” which was passed along to me by a Republican congressional aide. It encourages members to echo the president’s line, contending that “both sides … acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.”
Oh yes. Driving a car at speed into a crowd of people is “inappropriate,” and the people who dented the car when it smashed into them are equally at fault.
You can read the talking points in their entirety here. The links in the text are the White House’s. The briefing goes on to include a transcript of the president’s question-and-answer session with reporters at Trump Tower, followed by commentary on other issues.
NEWS OF THE DAY
Charlottesville
- The President was entirely correct — both sides of the violence in Charlottesville acted inappropriately, and bear some responsibility.
- Despite the criticism, the President reaffirmed some of our most important Founding principles: We are equal in the eyes of our Creator, equal under the law, and equal under our Constitution.
- He has been a voice for unity and calm, encouraging the country to “rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that brings us together as Americans.”
- He called for the end of violence on all sides so that no more innocent lives would be lost.
- The President condemned – with no ambiguity – the hate groups fueled by bigotry and racism over the weekend, and did so by name yesterday, but for the media that will never be enough.
- The media reacted with hysteria to the notion that counter-protesters showed up with clubs spoiling for a fight, a fact that reporters on the ground have repeatedly stated.
- Even a New York Times reporter tweeted that she “saw club-wielding “antifa” beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”
- The local ACLU chapter also tweeted that
- We should not overlook the facts just because the media finds them inconvenient:
- From cop killing and violence at political rallies, to shooting at Congressmen at a practice baseball game, extremists on the left have engaged in terrible acts of violence.
- The President is taking swift action to hold violent hate groups accountable.
- The DOJ has opened a civil rights investigation into this weekend’s deadly car attack.
- Last Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had completed the largest prosecution of white supremacists in the nation’s history.
- Leaders and the media in our country should join the president in trying to unite and heal our country rather than incite more division.
There aren’t enough swears in the world to cover that.
I’m tired. I read the first part of the last quoted sentence as “Leaders and the media in our country should join the president in trying to urinate…”
I felt sick when I watched the Vice News programme on Charlottesville. Quite apart from the sheer nastiness on display by the interviewed Nazis, how could anyone, let alone the putative president of the country, blame the victims of that hit and run? The description given of the events by the hideous Christopher Cantwell bore no resemblance to the sequence shown on the video. I was greatly relieved to find out that the posturing bully is a craven coward when the boot is on the other foot, and he is afraid that there is a warrant out for his arrest.
Even Facebook – known more for its failures to protect women and minorities from bullying – has been closing the accounts of the Nazis.
So…
What the hell is the White House playing at?!!
Constantly breaking its own record for disgusting enablement of the worst human on earth?
Funny, but at all the blogs I read (all of which tend toward the left), that shooting at the baseball game, as well as other violent acts, have been roundly condemned. In short, while there are left wing extremists, the left as a group tends to condemn that action (though not the punching of Richard Spencer; most seemed gleeful at Nazi punching).
The right for the most part has trouble condemning most of the violence done on their side, and when bad press forces them into that stance, they tend to insist on false equivalencies.
Does the Trump spectacle yet cause us to rethink at our comfort level at allowing narcissistic, vicious, incompetent (white) men to wield enormous power?
teslalivia, I think many people here don’t have to rethink it, because most of us weren’t comfortable with that in the first place. I wasn’t comfortable with it many years ago.
I suspect most loyal Trump supporters are quite comfortable with it, because it’s what they want.
Somewhere in between us and the loyal Trump supporter, there must be a group of people who are experiencing growing discomfort, and may be knocked out of their comfort zone. The only question is, will they be uncomfortable enough to show up to vote in the midterm to take back the Congress? Right now, I’m not hearing much positive from my acquaintances that are in that gray area. They still say, “yes, but, the Dems are so…. [fill in your favorite complaint from ideological purists]”