TRUMP BOWS TO PRESSURE ON RIOTS
Calls out KKK and neo-Nazis, as US firms condemn white supremacists
Donald Trump condemned white supremacist groups yesterday, two days after a neo-Nazi drove his car into crowd of protesters, killing one.
The US president came under furious criticism after shying away from mentioning far-right groups by name in his response to the attack in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.
“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Mr Trump said from the White House.
His comments came after a meeting with attorney general Jeff Sessions and FBI director Christopher Wray.
They pledged a civil rights investigation into the violent clashes and the car ramming in Charlottesville, which also injured 19 people.
Mr Trump’s turnabout and direct mention of the KKK and neo-Nazis came after days of criticism over his statement on Saturday, in which he only made reference to the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides”.
Many Republicans and Democrats urged a clearer condemnation of the groups and a message of unity from the president.
It was not clear if Mr Trump’s message was enough to calm the situation or end the widespread protests in major US cities against racism, which were sparked by the violence.
But apart from the social and political upheaval that events in Charlottesville have unleashed, corporate America and major commercial brands have moved to denounce white supremacists and protect their brands from the toxic neo-Nazi movement.
Yesterday, one of the US’s most prominent African-American executives, Kenneth Frazier, resigned from Mr Trump’s manufacturing council over the president’s failure to condemn the extremists.
Mr Frazier, chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical giant Merck and the only black member of the council, said: “America’s leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.”
Merck’s stock value went up after the announcement and despite an attack from Mr Trump on the company on Twitter.
Mr Frazier’s resignation will give “more time to lower ripoff drug prices”, he said.
Web host GoDaddy was another company that confronted the white supremacist web presence after Charlottesville.
It announced that it would no longer host the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that promoted the “Unite the Right” rally. “We informed the Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service,” the company said.
At the weekend, Airbnb cancelled accounts and reservations associated with white supremacists, disrupting their plans to spend the weekend in Charlottesville.
“In 2016 we established the Airbnb Community Commitment, reflecting our belief that to make good on our mission of belonging, those who are members of the Airbnb community accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age,” the company said.
Even the garden lamps company Tiki, whose products were used in the first white supremacist rally on Friday, issued a condemnation distancing its brand from their message.
“We do not support their message or the use of our products
in this way,” Tiki said in a Facebook post. “Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.”
Other groups, such as the “Yes Youre Racist” twitter account, outed and shamed those who protested in the white supremacist rally. In a matter of 48 hours, the account gathered more than 250,000 followers on Twitter.
Also, in California, the hot-dog franchise Top Dog, fired Cole White, one of the white supremacist protestors in Saturday’s rally, and whose name was outed by “Yes Youre Racist”.
Yesterday, attorney general Jeff Sessions said the car-ramming attack met “the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute”.
“You can be sure we will advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought, because this is an unequivocally unacceptable and evil attack that cannot be accepted in America,” he said, addressing demands that the attack be labelled as terrorism. “We will not allow these extremist groups to obtain credibility.”
Mr Sessions said he was scheduled to meet Mr Trump later in the day, as well as officials from the FBI. The president added a late-morning meeting with Mr Sessions and FBI director Christopher Wray to his schedule.
Mr Trump’s denunciation of hate groups yesterday came too late for many members of his Republican party.
“He missed an opportunity to be very explicit here,” said senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, referring Mr Trump’s statement on Saturday.
“These groups seem to believe they have a friend in Donald Trump in the White House.”
The Charlottesville mayor, Michael Signer, a Democrat, laid much of the blame for the violence directly at the president’s feet, saying Mr Trump had created an atmosphere of “coarseness, cynicism, bullying”.
Mr Trump faced criticism during the presidential campaign for failing to quickly reject a vow of support from a former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, although he eventually did so. Mr Duke attended Saturday’s rally.
The president has long had a following among white supremacist groups attracted to his nationalist rhetoric on immigration and other inflammatory issues.