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On a night marked by constant interruptions and flagrant events, it was a moment that triggered a different body-to-hand online.
Moderator Chris Wallace gave President Donald Trump an uninterrupted opportunity to condemn the country’s largest national terrorist groups: white supremacists. Instead, Trump said they “take a step back and stay away. “Besides, he said, violence in cities like Kenosha and Portland is a “left-wing problem, not a right-wing problem. “
Trump’s comments were temporarily followed through Proud Boys, a self-proclaimed “Western chauvinist” organization on the right of choice that obviously saw it as a call to action. The organization turned its comments into a logo that circulated widely on social media. The right-wing social media site Talk, Proud Boys frontline leader Joe Biggs, said he took Trump’s words as a directive for “f. . .
Anti-racism supporters also reacted quickly. ” Step back and stay away,” Ibram X tweeted. Kendi, by How to Be an Antiracist. ” The Night Line. What Donald J. Trump said to the greatest domestic terrorist threat of our time: white supremacists. “
The president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists follows a summer of protests and civil unrest in reaction to police brutality and systemic racism. Millions of Americans have taken to the streets since May following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, African-Americans killed through police and white civilian vigilantes. Trump denounced protests and organizations like Black Lives Matter as a “symbol of hate. “
In a segment described as “race and violence in our cities,” a confusion that caught the eye before the debate, Trump faced the factor of police reform. Instead, he doubled his claims that violence is endemic in Democratic-controlled cities. Republican playbook aimed at stoking concern among white voters.
Joe Biden resigns, arguing that the president’s current FBI director, Christopher Wray, has Antifa “more of an ideology or movement” than a terrorist organization like Trump claims.
Social justice organizations had to censor the president’s comments. Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told POLITICO that the president’s preference to forget about the motion and move to communicate questions about law and order aims to distract the electorate from its greatest shortcomings.
“There are protests in this country right now over the lack of racial justice. But throughout those protests, there is a crusade of racial terror,” he said. “Instead of focusing on existing disorders, which address and resolve disorders, this management has done more to stoke fear, fuel division, create anxiety and, frankly, leave a very confusing narrative that distracts us from the absolute disorders of this situation. Management to resolve disorders involving most Americans.
“At this point, no one deserves to be surprised that Trump at least sympathizes with the Proud Boys and other white supremacists,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change. “It is not only his words, but his actions, through politics and practice, that have been made imaginable through so many who claim to be outraged or surprised. “
Jessica Byrd, organizer of the Black Lives Movement and leader of the Frontline project, which aims to galvanize the electorate before the November election, issued a call for Trump’s refusal to condemn the Proud Boys as a “severe insult” to black Americans.
“His insensitivity to millions of Americans and his utter contempt for the systemic injustices facing our communities is more than enough proof of why we want to unite to elect him to power,” he said. to follow up. ” Four more years of Trump mean another 4 years of brazen white nationalism and fascism. Our democracy can’t do this.
White supremacist teams have been cited throughout the State Department as one of the top threats to national security. According to findings in an early September document shared with Department of Homeland Security POLITICO, white supremacist teams were above foreign terrorists in terms of speedy danger to the country.
Miles Taylor, a former Trump-appointee and staff leader for Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, said in a CNN interview Tuesday night that the president’s refusal to criticize the Proud Boys is “disqualifying the presidency. “
“I helped lead the branch guilty of countering the terrorist threats opposed to the Americans,” Taylor said. “I’m not pleased to say that an American president is winking and greeting the violent teams that threaten the lives of Americans and ours. “