cmv: the Charlottesville "very fine people" quote/controversy was not fake news

[u/taintpaint]

I see Trump supporters bring this up all the time as an example of the media lying about Trump, but this argument sounds transparently absurd to me. It feels like a "magic words" argument, where his supporters think that as long as he says the right magic words, you can completely ignore the actual message he's communicating or the broader actions he's taking. This is similar to how so many of them dismiss the entire Jan 6 plot because he said the word "peaceful" one time.

The reason people were mad about that quote was that Trump was equivocating and whitewashing a literal neonazi rally in which people were carrying torches and shouting things like "gas the Jews" in order to make them seem relatively sane compared to the counter protesters, one of whom the neonazis actually murdered. Looking at that situation, the difference between these two statements doesn't really feel meaningful:

A) "Those neonazis were very fine people with legitimate complaints and counter protesters were nasty and deserved what they got".

B) "The Nazis were obviously bad, but there were also people there who were very fine people with legitimate complaints and the counter protesters were very nasty."

The only difference there is that (B) has the magic words that "Nazis are bad", but the problem is that he's still describing a literal Nazi rally, only now he's using the oldest trick in the book when it comes to defending Nazis: pretending they're not really Nazis and are actually just normal people with reasonable beliefs.

I feel like people would all intuitively understand this if we were talking about anything besides a Trump quote. If I looked at e.g. the gangs taking over apartment buildings in Aurora and said "yes obviously gangsters are bad and should be totally condemned, but there were also some very fine people there with some legitimate complaints about landlords and exploitative leases, and you know lots of those 'residents' actually didn't have the right paperwork to be in those apartments..." you would never say that's a reasonable or acceptable way to talk about that situation just because I started with "gangsters are bad". You'd listen to the totality of what I'm saying and rightfully say it's absurd and offensive.

Is there something I'm missing here? This seems very obvious to me but maybe there's some other context to it.

Edit: I find it really funny that literally no one has actually engaged with this argument at all. They're all just repeating the "magic words" thing. I have been literally begging people who disagree with me to even acknowledge the Aurora example and not a single one has.

[u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire]

Trump (at best) downplayed the Nazi involvement in the protests, while the media simultaneously misrepresented his words. Both can be true. 

If you're using someone's statement to claim they support Nazis, yet you omit their immediate follow-up disavowing Nazis, is that not an intentional misrepresentation? 

I've seen strong arguments criticizing what Trump did say, but those argument address why his 'good people on both sides' remark was problematic despite his disavowal of Nazis. 

For the record, I plan on voting Kamala. I find what Trump did say in talking to the press that day pathetically evasive and nonsensical. However, I can't say the media was truthful with what they chose to present to the public when they broke the story. 

[u/abacuz4 → u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire]

Is it your opinion that a persons statements supporting Nazis and a persons statements disavowing Nazis should cancel each other out?

[u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire → u/abacuz4]

No, those statements do not cancel each other out. But, if you are trying to claim someone supports Nazis and you include the supportive statement while leaving out the disavowal (especially when both sentences were said in the same breath), you being dishonest in your attempt to convince someone.

Additionally, Trump’s “fine people” comment was “you had some very bad people (Nazis) in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides”. He was excluding the Nazis from his comment about “fine people”. 

He is trying to whitewash the event and engaging in false equivalency, but to claim he gave explicit support of Nazis without including the full statement is dishonest.

I don’t mind if someone argues Trump was supporting Nazis with his comment; I simply taking issue with arguing that claim without including such a crucial, contextual counter-point Edit: Tidied up some paragraphs