Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 29 2020 11:23pm)
So you're right that he technically did condemn white supremacists, but it was only after 3 days of pressure from his own party and it was shortly followed by a "both sides" comment.
lets take it from the top... i said that it was despicable of biden to continue to misrepresent the "both sides" statment as showing trump to be racist. lets call that "statement BS". according to biden, "statement BS = trump racist", which i say is a misrepresentation, and that "statement BS =/= trump racist".
now, while you didnt come out and say "trump IS racist", the presumption would be that thats why youre trying to counter my statement to the contrary. or at least that you think that statement (and the circumstances surrounding it) were indications of racism, even if you dont think trump himself is overall racist. if you had some other point in refuting my statement that "statement BS =/= trump racist" other than trying to show the opposite, ie that "statement BS = trump racist", then by all means, please explain. but the basic assumption is that youre trying to prove the opposite of what im saying, which would be that the statement shows trump to be racist.
you seem to have two reasons why you think the statement was racist, both of which ive addressed previously, but ill address them again:
1)
trump waited before making his statement, showing that its not sincere. so what if he waited? that doesnt take away from what he said. if you ask me what 2 plus 2 is, and i wait before answering 4, does it make it any less true? now im sure youll say but thats a statement of fact, context plays no role. i would say that likewise, saying that white supremacists should be condemned totally is a statement of fact as well, when its said is irrelevant, as long as its eventually said. it would have been *better* to say it sooner, but it doesnt affect the sincerity of it that it wasnt. it was said, plain and simple.
2)
he followed it with 'both sides' showing that he didnt really mean it. at the time when you said that, in the above quote, where you also stated that the rally was entirely white supremacists, that was at least an understandable position. you reiterated this later on in the thread:
Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 30 2020 12:11pm)
It was explicitly a rally for white supremacists, where all the speakers were white supremacists, and they literally marched through the streets chanting "Jews will not replace us" and "blood and soil".
if there were only white supremacists present, then yes, "both sides" would refer to them, and that would be calling white supremacists fine people. but thats NOT the only people who were there, as you later admit:
Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 30 2020 12:34pm)
The Unite the Right rally was technically about the Robert E. Lee statue, but confederate symbolism is heavily featured in American white supremacy, so those things aren't mutually exclusive. There may have been some portion of people there not about white supremacy, but you can say that about any gathering for any reason.
that being the case, that there WERE people there other than white supremacists, and considering that trump explicitly clarified that he is not talking about white supremacists, and condemned them, the statement of fine people CANNOT be referring to white supremacists, and any attempt to make it seem that way is a shameful dishonest distortion of reality.