Troubling (non-Trump) questions
The real Donald Trump re-emerged last Tuesday. Once again, without the restrictions of a script and teleprompter, he condemned the Charlottesville protesters, saying they were as guilty of the tragic aspects of the event as the “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi, KKK and white supremacist organizers. This despite the overwhelming American chorus denouncing his sickening assertion of moral equivalency, including the most prominent members of his own party.
So we now await the consequences of this unprecedented presidential misconduct, not only for the U.S. but globally. In the meantime, there are two non-Trump related issues which have received too little attention. The first concerns the site of the rally. As the size of the demonstration and the certainty of disruptive conflicts became clearer, the Charlottesville municipality revoked its earlier permit for the rally to be held on the relatively small downtown Emancipation Park, and issued a substitute permit for the larger, less-centralized McIntire Park. This prompted the immediate launching of a court action by the organizer, Jason Kessler, described by the local Republican Congressman as “a racist ideologue.” Two days prior to the event, Kessler’s counsel applied for an injunction, barring the city from retracting the original Emancipation Park permit.
Incredibly, the District Court judge, the day prior to the event, granted the injunction. He did so on his finding that the original permit had been revoked because of the city’s opposition to Kessler’s “political viewpoint,” rather than “public safety” factors. The city’s action, he held, constituted an impermissible “content-based restriction of speech.”
Equally incredibly, the Kessler motion was supported in court by the American Civil Liberties Association. The ACLA has subsequently expressed its profound regrets in light of the horrendous outcome. Going forward, it will be important to see what effect, if any, this tragic occurrence will have on future judicial determinations on the sanctity of the free speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The second non-Trump issue relates to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ rapid and seemingly encouraging response in announcing that that a federal “civil rights” investigation was being instituted. He said, in part: “The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.”
It was expected that this investigation, carried out collaboratively by the Justice Department and the FBI, would be wideranging, covering all the key events. So far, it has been limited to the death and injuries caused by the car attack. The driver has already been charged with second-degree murder. Much more tragedy and outrageous conduct occurred, vocally and physically: the torchlight march, accompanied by race-hatred chanting; the vicious attacks by white nationalists and supremacists, targeting people of colour with baseball bats, clubs and even flagpoles. And no doubt there will be counter-allegations that some protesters, as well, initiated attacks. All should be investigated and assessed.
As well, there are unanswered questions about when and by whom these events were organized. It is clear that key aspects, like the nocturnal march, were carefully and successfully planned. Was the following day’s disruption and violence deliberately prompted, or did it occur spontaneously as the environment worsened? There are at least two federal U.S. statutes that are said to be relevant to an examination of these issues: the Patriot Act, which sets out the characteristics of forbidden “domestic terrorism,” and the Shepard-Byrd Act, dealing with what constitutes a “hate crime,” both enforced by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Was the Session’s statement, issued so soon after the chaos, genuine or was it prompted by a desire of the White House higher-ups to try to cover for the president’s appalling comments? Who knows. But if the Trump crowd could be seen to be vigorously pursuing the racist “Unite the Right” crowd for hate crimes and domestic terrorism, that, along with the Steve Bannon purge, might improve the optics for them. However, don’t bet on it.
One thing is now crystal clear. After his last unscripted outburst, President Trump has lost all credibility — if any remained — and the greatest contribution he can make, short of resignation, is to stay on the golf course and stop tweeting. Fat chance!