Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
To the editor:
From the day I write this it has been exactly one month since a ruthless attack on American values took three lives and injured dozens more. The events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12 arguably resulted from a surge in the “alt-right” sparked by Trump’s anti-“outsiders” rhetoric, but what rung even louder to the nation than the hateful chants of white supremacists in their streets, was the lack of response from the president.
The world has stood witness to years of Trump’s strong verbal attacks against everything from our “bad hombres” in the south, to his disbelief of Obama’s birth-country, but when it comes to literal Nazis marching through our streets and chanting anti-Semitic slogans, America turned to its leader only to find an initially lackluster response to the rally. He condemned “both sides,” followed by a scripted address delivered from the White House.
Despite the fact that the president needed a team of writers to produce a script for him to name-drop and condemn Nazis and Klansmen, what has still yet to be seen from Trump and his administration is direct political action aimed to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.
On September 12, a resolution was unanimously passed by congress condemning white supremacists and urging the president to speak out against them. As a leader, it is now Trump’s responsibility to not only sign the resolution condemning white supremacy groups, but, as stated in the resolution, to “address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States.”
Jake Naroden
Hillsborough
