And the white supremacists who showed up in Charlottesville did indeed come prepared for violence. Many wore helmets and carried clubs, medieval-looking round wooden shields, and rectangular plexiglass shields, similar to those used by riot police.
Trump bears some responsibility for the racism on display in Charlottesville
The violence in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday at the "Unite the Right" protest against the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was irrefutably rooted in racism, and bore disgusting echoes of Nazism, the Los Angeles Times said adding, for evidence, look no further than the Hitlerian "blood and soil" and "Jews won't replace us" chants during a pre-protest rally Friday night by a Tiki torch-bearing parade of overwhelmingly white men.
Writing under the title "Trump bears some responsibility for the racism on display in Charlottesville," the LAT editorial said: "And to erase further doubt, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke watched the violence unfold Saturday and declared that the white supremacy movement -- which is what he represents -- was at "a turning point." Added Duke, "We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he's going to take our country back."
The LAT argued that the violence in Charlottesville clearly was the product of the rise of racism as a political force in this country. "It's easy to blame the hatred and divisiveness that spilled out of the Trump campaign. But truth be told, he tapped into a current of American political and social beliefs that has been around for generations."
Trump, to his detriment, has emboldened this rise. He missed a sterling opportunity to strike a different, more presidential, note Saturday with a milquetoast condemnation that failed to call out the racism that propelled Friday's march and Saturday's violence, the LAT editorial concluded.
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