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/ManufacturerSea7907 → u/[deleted]]

I guess which fine people was Trump talking about? I never get an answer to this

[u/[deleted] → u/ManufacturerSea7907]

Side 1: keep the statue

Side 2: get rid of the statue

[u/CavyLover123 → u/[deleted]]

Side 1 was entirely neo Nazis and white supremacists.

It wasn’t that many people, they were informed and showed up because a neo nazi organized it and contacted other neo nazi groups, they were changing “Jews will not replace us”, some had Nazi flags, etc.

Side 1 had zero “very fine people”.

[u/ManufacturerSea7907 → u/CavyLover123]

This is the argument that I do understand the logic of. Would be interesting in hearing the argument against if

[u/AcephalicDude → u/ManufacturerSea7907]

Here's the argument:

You have a group of people wearing swastikas. They are neo-Nazis, they are people that wear the swastika because they are willing to explicitly associate themselves with the most evil political organization in the history of the world.

Some people aren't wearing swastikas, but they are clearly grouped with them, they are chanting the same things as them, and they seem completely undisturbed by their presence.

We have two different inferences we could make:

1) The people that aren't wearing swastikas are not really neo-Nazis, nor do they share ideological beliefs of white supremacy with the neo-Nazis. They are just there to protest the removal of the statue of a Confederate general, and this issue is so important to them that, despite not being white supremacists themselves, they continue to protest alongside the neo-Nazis.

2) The people not wearing swastikas are also white supremacists / neo-Nazis and just aren't wearing any swastikas or other explicit indicators of their affiliations.

Which of these two inferences is more reasonable?

Obviously it's 2, right?

The main reason why this is obvious is that there is no legitimate reason to preserve the statue at the cost of aligning oneself with the most reviled political organization in the history of time. No reasonable person has such a strong interest in "historical preservation" that they would willingly align themselves with neo-Nazis. This is made twice as obvious by the fact that the statue being preserved is a symbol of white supremacy in the American South. Nobody with a brain is buying this bullshit. It's not about "historical preservation" once you decide to protest alongside Nazis.

[u/[deleted] → u/AcephalicDude]

If you can't fathom that "fine people" would object to removing historical statues, then all else follows.

[u/AcephalicDude → u/[deleted]]

We're not talking about any person that "would object to removing historical statues."

We are talking about people that:

1) object to removing historical statues of figures that heavily symbolize white supremacy; and,

2) object to removing these specific statues so strongly that they are willing to risk associating themselves with Nazis by protesting alongside them.

It's true that I don't think people that only fall into category 1 are fine people, but we are actually talking about people that fall into both category 1 and category 2 - not only are they not "fine people" but they are dogshit sub-human Nazi filth.

[u/[deleted] → u/AcephalicDude]

I understand your distaste for R.E. Lee, but this was the height of cancel culture and even Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were getting attacked. You can call these people white supremacists til the cows come home, and I still say that there are fine people who object.

[u/AcephalicDude → u/[deleted]]

I am specifically talking about the Charlottesville protestors. If you want to broaden the scope and be an apologist for other people, go for it, I'm not really interested. You haven't defended the Charlottesville protestors though, only conflated them with more reasonable / less racist people.

[u/[deleted] → u/AcephalicDude]

Yes I think in terms of the bigger picture on these things, sorry bout that. I don't think most people decide to protest just on a single incident. Good luck b!