archive

The Charlottesville furor

Charles Kurzman, Ahsan Kamal, and Hajar Yazdiha (UNC): Ideology and Threat Assessment: Law Enforcement Evaluation of Muslim and Right-Wing Extremism. The long history of white nationalism in America: The US was a de facto white-supremacist nation for most of its existence. Steve Bannon once said Breitbart was the platform for the alt-right — its current editors disagree; is the incendiary media company at the nerve center of Donald Trump’s America simply provocative or dangerous? Scott McLemee reviews The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon.

How did American Naziism begin? Randy Dotinga interviews Arnie Bernstein, author of Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund. The chilling effects of openly displayed firearms: Charlottesville marks a new era of even bolder assertion of the right to threaten violence for political purposes. National revulsion over the Charlottesville march shows why we shouldn’t ban hate speech. Trump’s idea that jobs will solve racism is just wrong. Why Trump blames “both sides” for Charlottesville: The history of fascism speaks volumes — but so does Trump, in his own words. Trump’s embrace of racially charged past puts Republicans in crisis.

Three veteran journalists on what can be learned from coverage of the civil rights movement and the level of reporting current events demand. “Not a single member of Trump’s Evangelical Council has resigned. We have learned corporate America has a greater moral compass. So so sad”. Jewish Trump staff silent on his defense of rally with anti-Semitic marchers. Trump comments on race open breach with C.E.O.s, military and G.O.P. Control-Alt-Fail: Chris Lehmann on getting beyond the toxic fiction that “both sides do it”. This week should put the nail in the coffin for “both sides” journalism. Republicans, cut the outrage — it’s time to disown Trump.

Jelani Cobb on Charlottesville and the trouble with Civil War hypotheticals. Donald Trump has no grasp of what it means to be president: The president is politically inept, morally barren and temperamentally unfit for office. Charlie Warzel on the pro-Trump media’s post-Charlottesville identity crisis. “He is stubborn and doesn’t realize how bad this is getting”: The Charlottesville furor is the latest example of the chaos that can result from Trump’s temper and refusal to back down. Trump’s lack of discipline leaves new chief of staff frustrated and dismayed. The monuments must go: An open letter from the great-great-grandsons of Stonewall Jackson.

Thread: “What Republicans find unforgivable in Trump’s comments is that they acknowledge what they hate to admit”.