Trump won’t denounce racist supporters

LETTERS LETTERS@USATODAY.COM

On Saturday, Americans were witness to a violent display of hatred and vitriol in Charlottesville, Va. The mass demonstration of alt-right, neo-Nazis and other extremists rocked the nation to its core.

If there was ever a moment for our president to rise up to the occasion and use the bully pulpit to condemn this display of unacceptable behavior, it was now.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump chose not to do this, and he failed to use this as an eminently teachable moment for the country. Instead of an outright condemnation of the extremists and their hateful message, Trump made a bland, weak statement that all violence, by “many” sides, was unacceptable.

Why did Trump fail to call out this vile behavior and label these people’s actions as intolerable and alien to the core values we hold so dearly?

Is it because these extremists represent a small but real part of his political base? Is it because part of him aligns with their cause?

We may not know the reasons. But what we do know is that the president once again demonstrated that his own behavior is not presidential, and is not what we hope or expect from our country’s leader. Ken Derow

Swarthmore, Pa.

The events that took place in Charlottesville, Va., are extremely sad but maybe not surprising.

Donald Trump began his presidential campaign by saying that some Mexicans are rapists and drug runners, and he was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. White House adviser Steve Bannon was a founding member of an online news website that publishes racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic material. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a letter written about him by Coretta Scott King stating he was unfit to be a judge because of his racist behavior in Alabama, behavior that led Congress to not confirm him in 1986.

It should be no surprise that white nationalists are publicly marching nowadays.

The important question is: Where do we go from here?

I believe we could start by getting bigots out of office and taking away their power. Jason Robinson

Valdosta, Ga.