@old europe,
On the Venn Diagram of members and their positions we share an intersecting region as respects this critical issue. We might diverge as to what circumstances are required to reach the point when violence as a respects the point when a violent political response may become morally right (if it ever can) but we agree that we are not at such a point now. I believe that the majority of A2K members join us in this region, but, clearly, not all. In the wider world, a majority of Americans share this view.
The argument that violence as a tactic in the opposition to Trump is politically counter-productive is, I believe, accurate and there is nothing inherently wrong with offering multiple reasons not to engage in any action one seeks to steer others clear of, but those who view this issue solely from a politically pragmatic perspective reveal that they reside in the intersectional region where political violence is
always a legitimate option, and the decision to employ it is strictly tactical and without any moral consideration.
It's also not a particularly brilliant or unique argument since violent resistance against the State will always be used by the State to its advantage, either by expanding its support among the citizenry or employing it as an excuse to crush the opposition. The specific argument of the
"others on the left" who are referenced in blatham's quote is anything but brilliant too, but it is uniquely obdurate.
Whether or not the violent tactics of the Antifa allows Trump to argue equivalence between them and right-wing groups who employ the same methods is immaterial to the success of the Resistance unless the Antifa is identified as among the primary agents of the movement. If there was essentially universal condemnation of the people who use these tactics by other members of the Resistance, the Antifa and their violence would be successfully divorced from the movement. It's not their violence alone that politically benefits Trump, its the absence of a comprehensive and unambiguous rejection within the Resistance of that violence.
Without rehashing the argument for why there is equivalence, focusing so intently upon it is largely pointless outside of the Resistance bubble, and, to some extent, counterproductive. Presented with a video of violent clashes between evenly matched groups of men wearing t-shirts bearing "14 Words," the
blood drop cross or the Confederate flag and another wearing black masks, the double arrows of the Iron fist or the Circle-A, the average American isn't likely to formulate a clear distinction between them and insisting that one is vastly worse than the other is not going to resonate and will instead convey the holding of a belief that the
lesser of the two evils is actually a posse of
Good Guys.
Trump's initial statement was obviously crafted to avoid singling out the white supremacists and there is an alternative explanation for this other than that he was revealing his own racism and his sympathy for Neo-Nazis and the KKK, but I see little to be gained by delving into that black hole. As neither of us can read his mind and no one in the White House has (yet) leaked their familiarity with Trump's intent when the statement was being prepared, we can only speculate.
Suffice it to say it was a
very big mistake in terms of politics, optics, and what was the right and proper thing for POTUS to tell the nation. He had the opportunity to unequivocally denounce and condemn white supremacy and the groups that exist to promote that loathsome ideology, and for whatever reason, he didn't seize it and thereby screwed the pooch and likely lost more supporters than he preserved. Doing so would have in no way been a sign of surrender to the Resistance nor would it have prohibited him from denouncing and condemning the violence employed by some counter-demonstrators. At the same time he could have carefully made his argument for not tearing down all monuments to figures of the Confederacy. The Resistance would never have received either of these additional points well, but Americans expect them to react negatively to everything he says and a great many agree with him as to the toxicity of Antifa violence. Defense of the Robert E. Lee statute might not have received widespread support, but it would have been far less easy to assume he shares the KKK's reason to preserve it if he had led with the utter rejection of their ideology.
Ironically, the fear of so many among the Resistance that white supremacy is being normalized in society is strongly undercut by the widespread non-partisan criticism of Trump for not immediately condemning the ideology and it's followers. Only a tiny slice of the population doesn't view this ideology and those who seek to advance it as
evil, not just wrongheaded but
evil. Americans have been correctly taught for their whole lives that it is evil and we are not that far removed from a generation of Americans who fought and died to protect the US and the world from fascist powers that sought to impose it globally. In the minds of most Americans there was no reason to avoid telling the American people not only what they already know, but what they expect POTUS to know too. It was the right thing to do, and he didn't do it. Another of his many self-inflicted wounds.
