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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29337 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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Name one instance where someone on the right engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and Trump offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation. Name one.

How much research did you do before you made this comment?

"I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally."

"As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America."

How much research did you do? On Saturday he makes his famous "many sides" comment. On Monday he releases the prepared statement you linked to. On Tuesday he doubles down on what he said Saturday:

What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists; the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

You also had some very fine people on both sides

Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. This week, it is Robert E. Lee. And I notice that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you have to ask yourself, where does it stop?

As @Rosencrantz2 points out, you can cherry pick a few sentences out of each incident to make it sound like he's offering nothing but condemnation, but I specifically said that he can't help using these events as opportunities to dunk on his opponents. His Tuesday remarks made it sound like the white supremacists and neo-Nazis were a small minority of people who just happened to be at the protest and not the organizing force behind it. He says the left is just as bad, if not worse. And then he goes on to put Confederate generals in the same league as the founding fathers, just so you know whose side he's really on.

It seems that people are interpreting "someone on the right engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and Trump offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation" to mean "nothing-but-condemnation of the violence", in which case your request was a reasonable one, but it has been answered. But it seems to me that you meant "nothing but condemnation-of-the-violence", in which case your request might not be answered, but it was an unreasonable one.

Recently I brought up Obama as an example of a very high-profile Blue Triber who was neither cheering nor minimizing the murder of Charlie Kirk ... but should I have been criticizing him instead? He was quick to point out that he thought some of Kirk's ideas were wrong, and to bring up left-wing victims too; he definitely failed the "nothing but condemnation-of-the-violence" standard despite passing "nothing-but-condemnation of the violence".

So, which standard are we looking for here? If "The point wasn't whether he was technically correct when he implied that all sides engage in political violence." then we have no choice but to criticize Obama too!

For that matter, could you clarify what standard Trump was failing with his slippery slope argument? The slope was indeed slippery, including with regards to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in particular. The only "league" in those statements is the class of people whose statues were in jeopardy, and it turned out that he was correct that they were all in that same class. I mostly like your reasoning better, personally! The idea that the Founding Fathers should have been in a league of their own beyond anachronistic condemnation was defensible, until we discovered it was wrong. It's only the part where you get upset at him for being right in foresight where you were wrong despite hindsight that you went off the rails.

Some of these may be "stopped clock is correct twice a day" situations for Trump, but then just stick with the incorrect things to criticize instead! The trick to criticizing people for merely being "technically correct" is that you have to remember that our goal is to be morally correct in addition to being technically correct; you can't be morally correct instead. I get that it's infuriating to have to hold yourself to a higher standard than the President of the United States, but in a virtue and deontological sense that's the right thing to do for its own sake; and in a consequentialist sense, the worse the target of your argument is, the more important it is to not just throw mud at the wall to see what sticks.

You know, one can gain a lot of wiggle space by alluding to secret thoughts of Trump and imagining what he really thinks based on tortured interpretations of some words (like, if he thinks destroying a monument to some person might be bad idea, that means he actually embraces the single worst thing they ever thought and those of everyone they ever associated with, because that's totally how people work). But when you go out and say Trump did not condemn white supremacists while he did, I personally heard him do that, and there's a lot of recordings of him doing it - the game is over. There's no longer any pretense that you are interested in finding any kind of truth or revealing anything in the vicinity of it. It's pure partisan manipulation, and can be only seen as such.

And then he goes on to put Confederate generals in the same league as the founding fathers, just so you know whose side he's really on.

That of his supporters?

All these quotes seem unequivocably fair and true to me.

His Tuesday remarks made it sound like the white supremacists and neo-Nazis were a small minority of people who just happened to be at the protest and not the organizing force behind it.

I think probably true, yes. There really aren't enough neo-Nazis to meet popular demand. Nor enough white supremacists unless you use the Left's very expansive definitions.

He says the left is just as bad, if not worse.

I think definitely true. Antifa is both far more organised and unbelievably violent. They are also much more expert in turning powder-keg protests into violent riots.

And then he goes on to put Confederate generals in the same league as the founding fathers, just so you know whose side he's really on.

Almost certainly the side of people worried about the Left's eagerness to knock down statues of everyone who doesn't meet their approval, including those of the Founding Fathers who were slave owners. Certainly Churchill in the UK was not spared.

As far as I'm concerned Trump clearly condemned the actual bad guys and then commented about the broader situation in terms that were far more balanced than the rabid press. He never said that the man who was killed deserved to die, he never said that 'being a neo-Nazi is good, actually'. In contrast, the left never says, 'fine people on both sides', they say, 'okay, some of our people are violent rioters but most of them are peaceful protesters, and by the way anyone who gets in the way is a bigot who deserves what they get'.

If the left could reliably meet Trump's standard I would be much more satisfied.

nothing but

Yes, of course. Condemnation in the "strongest possible terms" is no match for the "nothing but" barrier. I'm finding no evidence, video or otherwise, of Trump performing seppuku either. I stand corrected.

That didn't long to find. Kudos for keeping it to the point.

See my above response.

  • -12

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