DOMESTIC WOE TESTS TRUMP’S METTLE
He faces criticism for not condemning the role of white supremacists
FOR United States President Donald Trump, this was the week when the real world began to intrude upon his presidency.
The violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white nationalists and counterprotesters confronted Trump with perhaps the first true domestic crisis of his young administration. And to some, even within the Republican Party, he came up short.
As images of rising tensions and a deadly car rampage in Charlottesville filled television screens nationwide, the president was criticised first for waiting too long to address the violence and then, when he did so, failing to explicitly condemn the white-supremacist marchers who ignited the melee.
Marco Rubio, a Republican senator who was Trump’s rival for the presidential nomination, quickly suggested Trump’s initial response was inadequate.
On Twitter, Rubio wrote that it was “Very important for the nation to hear events in Charlottesville for what they are: a terror attack by #whitesupremacists.”
While Trump has had to deal with the pressures of the federal probe into Russian meddling in last year’s election, disarray in his White House, and conflicts with Congress over his stalled agenda, there have been few external crises that have tested his presidential mettle.
By contrast, his predecessor, Barack Obama, inherited a severe economic downturn during his first year in office, and would go on to face, among other tests, a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Middle East upheaval, terror attacks in Boston, Orlando, and elsewhere, and civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.
Trump has spent this week at his tony golf club in New Jersey, attempting to show the American public that he is indeed working and not vacationing. He held one event after the other, while answering media questions with an approachability he hasn’t shown for months.
Yet, when news of the situation in Charlottesville first started filtering out last Friday, Trump was silent. He first addressed the matter — through a tweet — on Saturday afternoon, after a planned white-supremacist rally had been dispersed, fights had broken out, and a state of emergency declared.
By the time Trump appeared before reporters at a staged billsigning event at his club, footage of a car speeding up and slamming into a crowd of protesters had swamped social media and cable networks, raising the spectre of domestic terrorism. At least one woman died and several people suffered critical injuries.
Trump read a statement rebuking the violence, but without specifically mentioning or faulting the role of white nationalists.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”
Beyond Rubio, Trump’s response was also not enough for Senator Cory Gardner, who chairs the Republican Party’s Senate-election effort.
“Mr President, we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism,” he tweeted.
Republican Orrin Hatch, who has served as a senator for 40 years, referenced his brother, who was killed in World War2.
“We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Adolf Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home,” he said on Twitter.
Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said that Trump had not demonstrated moral leadership. “There are NOT many sides to this,” he wrote.
Trump tweeted several more times after the press event, offering support to Charlottesville and the police, but still declining to critique the violence in more explicit terms.
Both as a candidate and as president, Trump has met with charges that he has courted the support of white supremacists and nationalists, the so-called “alt-right”, as a key part of his passionate voter base.
He was forced at one point last year to publicly denounce the Ku Klux Klan and one of its leaders, David Duke.
After Trump was elected, he installed Steve Bannon, a trusted figure in nationalist circles and former chairman of the hardright outlet Breitbart News, as a top adviser in the White House. Reuters