Congress unanimously condemned hate; now Donald Trump must decide if he agrees
On Monday, Sept. 11, a day of solemn remembrance fueled by patriotism and American pride, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a joint resolution “rejecting White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups and urging the president and the president’s Cabinet to use all available resources to address the threats posed by those groups.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. House followed suit.
The message is clear from our much-divided politicians in Washington D.C.: that while America faces many threats abroad, the growing anger and hate coming from extremists organizations at home also threatens the fundamental principles of our nation’s independence that all men are created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Make no mistake about it, Congress says, when a suspected white supremacist drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer and wounding others, it was a “domestic terrorist attack.”
In other times such a statement might not seem important. But the joint resolution now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature, and sadly we all must question whether the president agrees with Congress’ assessment that White nationalism, White supremacy, and neo-Nazism are “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.”
Fortunately, Republicans like Sen. Cory Gardner from Colorado signed on early to this resolution, forcing our president to wrestle with his inner demons to sign this joint resolution.
Compounding the insult of sending such a resolution to the president is that it “urges the president and his administration to speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy, and use all resources available … to address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States.”
Strong words indeed to push the president to finally do the right thing.
We were dismayed that following Heyer’s death the president condemned violence “on all sides” in Charlottesville. Responding to pressure, including that from Gardner, Trump came out with strong words of condemnation for White nationalists, only to falter again in an unhinged press conference where he insisted that the counter demonstrators deserved equal condemnation and some of those marching with white supremacists were “very fine” people.
Gardner has been a leader for Republicans on this issue. He was among the first of his colleagues to come out swinging at Trump’s inappropriate response to a national tragedy.
“This is not a time for vagaries or innuendo to be allowed to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame on bigotry,” Gardner said in an interview with CNN shortly after Charlottesville. “This president has done an incredible job of naming terrorism around the globe as evil … and he needs to do exactly that today.”
Congress has given Trump a chance to redeem himself. He can sign this joint resolution in a ceremony that thoroughly condemns these groups and honors Heyer and the two officers who died in a helicopter crash while monitoring the protest.
We hope he does so because the president’s actions to date have only served to embolden a dark side of our society.
— The Denver Post, Digital First Media