President needs to side with America

Donald Trump made quite a career by attacking Barack Obama for not using the words “Islamic extremists” regarding foreign terror attacks.

So what did our president do on Saturday when a rally by ideologies based on exclusion and hate turned violent? He refused to denounce or even acknowledge the extremist movements behind the attack and implied that the people who were there for acceptance, for tolerance and the American principle of justice for all were equally to blame.

Gee, unity is great, but the president’s call sounded more like appeasement, like asking the beaten and oppressed to please stop complaining so much.

His immediate response was not a surprise. The Trump White House months ago announced that the very white supremacists who marched with torches denouncing an entire religion, who waved flags of secession (and not the flag of America) and shoved priests and pastors out of their way — these groups are not “extremists.” His budget proposal slashed the entire budget for the program to counter violent extremists.

Our grandparents struggled and died to defeat the same hateful, violent ideology that the protesters in Virginia defended with their cudgels and shields and guns.

That is simply unacceptable.

Trump has a choice to make. He can stand with America and hold aloft the torch of liberty for all, or he can stand with the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, and wave the torch of hate.

Which side is he on?

Tracy Meisky Columbus