Race hate splits party
ONE after another, the nation’s most powerful Republicans responded to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary remarks about white supremacists. Yet few mentioned the President.
The Senate’s top Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, condemned “hate and bigotry.” House Speaker Paul Ryan charged that “White supremacy is repulsive.”
Neither criticised the President’s insistence that there were “very fine people on both sides” of a violent weekend clash between white supremacists and counterdemonstrators.
The nuanced statements reflect the party establishment’s delicate dance. Few top Republican officeholders defended the President in the midst of an escalating political crisis.
Yet they are unwilling to declare all-out war against Mr Trump and risk alienating his loyalists. And as the 2018 elections begin to take shape, the debate over Mr Trump’s words appears to be taking hold in GOP primaries.
Mr Trump’s overall approval rating may be dismal but a small group of diehard supporters is expected to play an outsized role in next year’s midterm elections when the Republican control of Congress is at stake.
Those supporters are praising the President’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one dead and many more wounded.
“You got racism in both factions, on both sides,” former New Hampshire GOP chair Jack Kimball said. “Trump has zero fault here. None.” Republican leaders also need the President: They hope to work with him to enact meaningful legislation on infrastructure, taxes and health care to prove to voters their party can govern. The delicate relationship helps explain Wednesday’s cautious comments from powerful Republicans like McConnell.
“We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head,” Mr McConnell said in a statement, noting that white supremacists are planning a rally in his home state of Kentucky. “Their messages of hate and bigotry are not welcome in Kentucky and should not be welcome anywhere in America,” he said.
Former Republican Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, usually silent on current political developments, released a joint statement that stopped short of criticising Mr Trump as well.
“America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism and hatred in all forms,” the Bushes said.
The political tap dance frustrated one member of Mr Trump’s diversity council, CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Javier Palomarez, who called Mr Trump’s response “a monumental failure in leadership.”
But Trump loyalists on the ground in key states are ready to fight for their leader. There were signs the divide between the loyalists and establishment Republicans is shaping the midterm political landscape.
Meanwhile, family members of the young woman killed in the Charlottesville rally used her funeral as a rallying cry, telling mourners the best way to honour Heather Heyer was to continue her fight against injustice.