Charlottesville Is the America That Donald Trump Promised
Hate has always existed in America. This president made it fashionable again.
A rally organized by an array of loosely-affiliated white nationalist groups in Charlottesville, Virginia began last night with a eerie, torch-lit march through the deserted-for-the-summer UVA campus. It ended in unspeakable tragedy this morning, when a car driving through a counterprotest accelerated suddenly into a crowd of people, killing one and injuring dozens more. Think about exactly what this means: A person lost their life because they had the audacity to join others in publicly and peacefully denouncing the myriad forms of bigotrythat took to the streets of Charlottesville today. Right now, this country is stretched closer than ever to a breaking point, and it is exactly the America that Donald Trump promised.
What happened in Charlottesville is despicable and horrifying. But it's hard to call it a surprise, really. Long before Election Day, the people who now helm this administration were gleefully signaling that theirs would be a friendly one to people defined by hatred. The first article I ever wrote for GQ mocked then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence for refusing to label David Duke, an actual former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, as "deplorable." For any other politician, being asked about one's affiliation with an avowed white supremacist is the biggest, juiciest question softball imaginable. And yet, although Pence meekly explained that the ticket didn't want Duke's support or the support of people who thought like him, he couldn't bring himself to renounce them entirely. "I'm not in the name-calling business," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "You know me better than that."
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