{"id":18885,"date":"2017-08-14T08:34:58","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T14:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=18885"},"modified":"2017-08-14T08:34:58","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T14:34:58","slug":"opinion-in-the-aftermath-of-violence-silence-from-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/08\/opinion-in-the-aftermath-of-violence-silence-from-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: In the aftermath of violence, silence from ‘leaders’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Signs\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

An anti-violence rally in Billings drew about 60 people to the lawn of the Yellowstone County Courthouse on Sunday.<\/p><\/div>\n

A presidential response condemning white nationalists and Neo-Nazis should not be this difficult to formulate, and the silence from Montana\u2019s state and congressional leaders should not be this deep and profound.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, white supremacists marched down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, waving Confederate flags and bearing Nazi symbols, where they were confronted by counter protesters understandably offended by the outward show of bigotry and hate.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/a>

Martin Kidston<\/p><\/div>\n

The day before, a clan-like rally comprised of torch-bearing white males chanting \u201cyou will not replace us\u201d and \u201cwhite lives matter\u201d took place on the University of Virginia campus. Less than a day later, after the Charlottesville clash, a domestic terrorist and presumed white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of people, killing at least one and injuring more than a dozen others.<\/p>\n

It was a troubling day in America to be sure. But in a measly response, President Donald Trump managed to call the day\u2019s tragedy \u201cso sad!\u201d on Twitter after blaming both sides for the violence, all before going on to promote the nation\u2019s low unemployment rate (and himself), as if the day\u2019s events were something less than significant.<\/p>\n

\n
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Making matters worse, in his half-baked response, Trump blamed \u201cmany sides\u201d for the deadly violence. Today, it seems, we should all accept Nazis and white supremacists the same as a church pastor or community volunteer, as if they were good-hearted and decent people with our best interests in mind.<\/p>\n

In his attempts at restoring calm, our new president never mentioned \u201cwhite nationalists\u201d by name. Perhaps this is insignificant until one considers the months he spent berating former President Barack Obama for never uttering the words \u201cradical Islamic extremists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has no problem condemning the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate or members of his own Cabinet. But when it comes to Nazism and white supremacy, it seems this is a subject that\u2019s off limits.<\/p>\n

It was clear months ago that we now have an infantile, shady billionaire as a president, and his remarks Saturday on Twitter were no surprise. I didn\u2019t expect anything more. His sad address to the nation in what may be the first domestic crisis of his presidency was equally expected, though one might have thought he would call a spade a spade and put the blame where it belonged.<\/p>\n

It should have been easy to do.<\/p>\n

But when a significant portion of your supporters come from the alt-right and march under the Nazi emblem wearing hats bearing your own campaign slogan (Make America Great Again), it may be hard to speak against them. His white-supremacist supporters are also looking to return the nation to another time, just like he is.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll let the national media debate these matters, though I feel perfectly suited to ask the question more pressing to most Montanans. Throughout the day, Republicans \u2013 from Marco Rubio of Florida to Cory Gardner of Colorado \u2013 responded as one would hope and expect their congressional representative to respond, even if the president is unable to speak the words himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremicists,\u201d Rubio tweeted at 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. President \u2013 we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism,\u201d Gardner tweeted at 2:44 p.m.<\/p>\n

There were others as well. \u201cWhite supremacy is a scourge,\u201d tweeted Rep. Paul Ryan who, by the way, runs the House of Representatives on behalf of the Republican majority. \u201cThis hate and its terrorism must be confronted and defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest serving Republican senator in history, said on Twitter: \u201cWe should call evil by its name. My brother didn\u2019t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the best response of the day.<\/p>\n

I spent the rest of Saturday checking emails, certain that Sen. Steve Daines would offer an official response, or perhaps another member of our congressional delegation. It\u2019s now 9:34 p.m., and while I\u2019ve checked their congressional pages for some statement, there isn\u2019t one, though Daines did issue a tweet earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is bigotry. This is racism. These are views we as the American people should reject,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, it was crickets from Montana\u2019s congressional delegation.<\/p>\n

Why does this matter? As removed as we may be on the northern tier, we do not live in a vacuum, and what happens in Charlottesville ripples across the nation, all the way to Montana. In fact, locally known white supremacist Richard Spencer even played a role this weekend in Charlottesville, stirring the pot of hatred as he always does.<\/p>\n

Busy as he must have been helping organize events in Virginia, Spencer took time to tweet, \u201cThe alt-right is being refused service \u2026 at lunch counters \u2026 in the South \u2026 for engaging in a peaceful demonstration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poor Richard Spencer. Poor white men.<\/p>\n

While the rest of the nation debates race, violence, the dangers of the alt-right (and the anarchist left), and the undercurrent that survives in Nazism in America, we in Montana get to watch our television while wishing, perhaps, we had someone in leadership to condemn what took place in American today.<\/p>\n

It was just 18 months ago that I met another group of self-entitled, banner-waving citizens in Missoula who felt that only they should reap the gifts of security and comfort. They stood on the courthouse lawn that cold winter day holding signs suggesting that people of color (Muslims in this case) \u201cRape. Kill. Destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hence, they weren\u2019t welcome here.\u00a0But Missoula knew better and it prevailed through courage, strength and unity.<\/p>\n

Gifted as we now are with a narcissistic president who finds it impossible to demonstrate leadership when it is needed most, we\u2019ll have to look for assurance closer to home. Sadly, at least tonight, that leadership is nowhere to be found beyond a single Tweet.<\/p>\n

Martin Kidston is a former U.S. Marine, a University of Montana graduate and longtime reporter who founded the Missoula Current<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A presidential response condemning white nationalists and Neo-Nazis should not be this difficult to formulate, and the silence from Montana\u2019s state and congressional leaders should not be this deep and profound. On Saturday, white supremacists marched down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, waving Confederate flags and bearing Nazi symbols, where they were confronted by counter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":18886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[6156,6160,5471,528],"class_list":["post-18885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-charlottesville","tag-neo-nazis","tag-president-trump","tag-steve-daines","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18888,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18885\/revisions\/18888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}