“President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds.”
If you’re thinking this seems like a rather vague and hollow response given the circumstances, you’re not alone. Asked to condemn a specific event, led by specific extremists, who made specific remarks, Team Trump chose to denounce racism in general — saying literally nothing about Saturday’s gathering or the movement the radicals comprise.MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin asked an excellent question last night: “Set aside politics or norms. If a bunch of racists are playacting Nazism in your name, isn’t the natural response to be personally furious?”One would certainly like to think so. And yet, here we are.Put it this way: Trump seems entirely comfortable blasting “Saturday Night Live” for telling jokes at his expense, and the president-elect could hardly contain his outrage at the cast of “Hamilton” for urging Mike Pence to honor American principles of inclusion.But when alt-right activists spew racist garbage and make Nazi salutes at a gathering in the nation’s capital, Trump prefers to keep his concerns vague and generalized.The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank added, “The scenes seemed as if from another time and another place, but in Donald Trump’s America, they are here and now. And if Trump doesn’t do something more forceful to disown his neo-Nazi hangers on, they will continue their brazen march into the mainstream.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."