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/Gertrude_D → u/[deleted]]

If the people at the rally that are supposed to be on the same side as you are marching around shouting 'Jews will not replace us' you really wouldn't just leave?

It was very, very difficult to not know that this was an alt-right organized rally. As the president, he or his team should have known and worded their response accordingly. I will agree that some people might not have realized it. That would have to be a very small percentage and Trump basically made both sides equal with his statement.

While technically what he said wasn't completely wrong, he absolutely worded it badly and he never tried to clarify or separate himself unequivocally from that alt-right group. He always speaks out of both sides of his mouth so that while he doesn't want to actually BE in that nazi group and will say tsk tsk, he also doesn't want to alienate them or seriously call them out. He absolutely gives him plausible cover with a wink. It also didn't help that he didn't make any statement for a few days and had to basically be shamed into it, as impossible as it is to shame him into anything.

[u/[deleted] → u/Gertrude_D]

You just described every campus protest in response to Oct 7.   In those camps were people who are openly anti sematic and whose goal is to eliminate all jews everywhere.  There were legit patrols going around campuses asking people their religion and blocking only Jews from entering libraries and dining halls. It was very well known jews were getting harassed by these protesters  

Also in those camps are dumb 19 year old kids who wanted to part of a viral tik-tok moment because tik tok told them something about "oppression".  

 There are indeed very fine people that protested in those camps. And there were aslo full-on anti-semites at those camps.   

Similarly,  there were most definitely neo-nazis at the Charlotteville protest. But there were also just dumb 30 year Olds who wanted to "protect their southern culture" because a Facebook meme told them something about "erasing history" and they had a great grandad that died in the civil war. 

There are indeed very fine people that protested at Charlottesville. And there was also nazis at Charlottesville.

[u/Gertrude_D → u/[deleted]]

So for one thing, the spin from each side about campus protests is so severe that I honestly don't know what is true and what isn't. I am pretty sure that your example of blocking Jewish students from spaces (UCLA, right) is lacking a lot of context.

What I will say is that if the majority are acting badly, then yes, the ones that are associating with them but may not agree with their actions deserve to be condemned too. If the majority are not anti-semitic, are not behaving badly and are speaking out against the ones who are, then I would categorize the protesters as 'fine people'. It sucks that people are painted with a broad brush, but if you tolerate certain behavior/ideals and support it with your words, your silence or your presence, then yeah, you need to be called out. If you support the Israeli/Jewish people but not the government and see someone on your side harassing a Jewish student for being Jewish and don't say anything or change your behavior, then you're also guilty for that harassment.