OPINION - Shields and Brooks 8/25/2017

"Shields and Brooks on Trump's contrasting speeches, GOP ruptured relations" PBS NewsHour 8/25/2017

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's political news, including President Trump's wildly different approaches to his address on Afghanistan strategy and his remarks in Phoenix, his attacks on top Republicans in Congress, and his Pentagon directive to ban transgender people from joining the military.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The week began with the President's scripted speech on Afghanistan, followed by a raucous rally in Phoenix that helped widen a rift between Mr. Trump and top Republicans in Congress.  That's the backdrop as we turn to the regular Friday analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and “New York Times” columnist David Brooks.

Gentlemen, it's so good to see you both together.  Welcome.

So, Charlottesville, it's been almost two weeks since the tragedy there.  It has risen in the headlines again this week, David.  The President's in Phoenix, he makes this passionate speech unscripted, defending the way he handled Charlottesville, bringing on even more criticism.

Are we in the clear now on what this President believes about racism, about white supremacy and all of it?

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times:  I think we're a little clearer on where the Republican Party is.  You know, the Trump campaign began really seriously with the Muslim ban.  It continued with a series of racial things about the wall.  It continued Charlottesville and the reactions.  And what's happened is the racial winking and content, the identity politics has become a rising motif in the Trump administration, especially as everything else including economic policy and economic populism has fallen away.

And that's meant the Republican Party or at least some portion of it, and I don't know how big, has become more of a white ethnic party, ethnic nationalist party.  That has made life impossible for a lot of people who signed up as Republicans but didn't sign up for this.  And we've had fights within Republicans on a lot of different issues on taxes, on wars and things like that.

But this is upon which parties break apart because you can't Republican — if the Republican Party becomes a party aligned with bigotry in some overt way or in any way, you can't be a Republican and try to be a decent person and be a part of it.  And I've watched within my friends here in Washington, friendships ending in a way I never really seen before.  And friendship ending I think in the evangelical world, friendships are ending.

And Senator Danforth had an op-ed today and Gary Cohn is put in this position.  And so, what you're seeing is a hint of a rupture the likes of which I really haven't seen before.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  And I was going to ask you both and David brought it up, Mark, this column and today an interview by the former Republican senator from the state of Missouri, John Danforth, saying if the Republican Party doesn't disassociate itself from Donald Trump over his handling most recently of Charlottesville and the race question, but he lists other issues as well, he said the party sunk.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist:  Yes.  Jack Danforth comes with credentials as a senator, as the Senate sponsor, personal endorser of the only African-American ever nominated to the Supreme Court by any Republican President, Clarence Thomas, who had worked for him.  So, he is — he is someone who has certainly street cred on this issue.

Judy, it's quite I think obvious at this point that the President does not understand what the job is.  I mean, the job of the President of the United States is to be the voice of compassion, is to be, to provide equanimity in spirit, is to provide magnanimity of view.  He, in a scripted, teleprompted address, he can give a coherent speech as he did on Afghanistan, a colorless, energy-less but nevertheless coherent speech as he did for veterans.

But he only thrives, he's only alive, he's only authentic when he unleashes his indictive, when he stirs up the basest instincts of his supporters, and he responds only to cheers, cheers and jeers of those whom he opposes, whom he's still running against some 10 months after the election he's still running against.

So, it's a sad, sad time.  It has to be sadder for those who work in this administration to learn as the Quinnipiac University poll, a respected poll, show this week that Americans by two to one believe that Donald Trump is dividing the country rather than writing the country.  That solid majority, 3-2, they believe the press, the dreaded media over Donald Trump to tell the truth.  And they believe — three out of five Americans believe he is giving aid in comfort to white supremacist, and encouragement.

So, it's a truly sad — I don't — I can only say to Republicans, I mean, it is a time you're going to be asked about this.  You're going to be asked where you stood.  And what you did on Donald Trump.  And I thought Gary Cohn — it only took him two weeks to come to it and —

JUDY WOODRUFF:  This is the President's economic adviser, yes.

MARK SHIELDS:  Yes, and then he came to the decision of conscience that Janet Yellen made a very candid statement today, recognition statement at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she announced that she, in fact, the regulations imposed on the big banks after the collapse of 2008, the financial crisis, were necessary, were wise and should not be repealed.

So, Gary Cohn holding on, slimly, perhaps to the hope of becoming chair of the Federal Reserve swallowed his misgivings, and the odor of anti-Semitism that smacked Donald Trump's remarks and agreed to continue as a patriotic man to serve and I guess we could only salute him.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  It’s a zigzag course, David.  I mean, as both of you said, when the President is reading from the teleprompter, the message is that we reject racism, we reject white supremacy, neo Nazis, but it’s in these speeches where there’s another message that seems to come out.  I was just reading the radio address that the White House is going to put out tomorrow from the President.  He’s back to the scripted lines, rejecting everything that smacks of racism.

DAVID BROOKS:  To his credit, he’s incapable of insincerity and hypocrisy.  He can — he can keep up for an hour, for a day, for 24 hours, he’ll say what they want him to say, but then within 24 hours, he’s got to come back to be himself and he’s going to explode beyond those barriers.  We’ve seen that again and again and again.

I just think the Trump administration is going to wander into these fields more and more in the months and years ahead, simply because they don’t have an economic agenda, there’s very small chance of tax reform, they don’t have the populist thing they can bring to people.  And so, what they have is this ethnic nationalism.  And they are frankly going to be helped sometimes by Democrats or by radicals on the left who are going to deface the Thomas Jefferson statute or do something like that. And then that’s it for Donald Trump.  He can say they’re defacing Thomas Jefferson.

So, then the identity politics of the left and identity politics play off each other and you get this war of people who think that white and black are the only two categories in life and they should have some sort of political war over this and it begins to look like the Sunnis and Shiites.  And as I say, that’s a Republican Party that decent people don’t want to be a part of, frankly.

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Aftermath, a Personal View

"He was a witness in Charlottesville.  Then the death threats and conspiracy theories began." PBS NewsHour 8/23/2017

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SUMMARY:  Brennan Gilmore filmed the moment when a car plowed into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, killing one woman and injuring 19 others.  When he made his video public and spoke out to the news media, he became the target of death threats and conspiracy theories.  A former foreign service officer and a Democratic campaign aide, Gilmore joins Judy Woodruff to recount his experience.

AMERICA DIVIDED - Trump's Phoenix Speech

IMO:  A hateful, un-American speech by a bully and fake-President.

"Does Trump's divisive Phoenix rhetoric help his agenda?" PBS NewsHour 8/23/2017

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SUMMARY:  President Trump's expansive and divisive campaign-style speech in Phoenix drew cheers from his supporters but did nothing to reach more skeptical Americans.  Judy Woodruff sits down with Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org, to discuss how his remarks on Charlottesville, the news media and fellow Republicans affect his own agenda.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM - Tech Company Backlash

"Tech companies shut down white nationalist sites" PBS NewsHour 8/19/2017

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SUMMARY:  Events in Charlottesville last week prompted the tech community to take steps against hate speech.  Companies like Google have stopped hosting white nationalist websites, and Facebook and Twitter have shut down known white nationalists' accounts.  Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that the tactics used to silence neo-Nazis online could be used against others in the future.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM - Elite's Reaction

"CNN's Zakaria slams elite for reaction to Trump, Charlottesville" by Jacqueline Thomsen, The Hill 8/20/2017

DOCUMENTING HATE - What Charlottesville Exposes

"A New Generation of White Supremacists Emerges in Charlottesville" by A.C. Thompson and Karim Hajj, ProPublica 8/13/2017

The white supremacist forces arrayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend — the largest gathering of its sort in at least a generation — represented a new incarnation of the white supremacy movement.  Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent.

Instead, the ranks of the young men who drove to Charlottesville with clubs, shields, pepper spray and guns, included many college-educated people who have left the political mainstream in favor of extremist ideologies over the past few years.  A large number have adopted a very clean cut, frat-boyish look designed to appeal to the average white guy in a way that KKK robes or skinhead regalia never could.  Interviews show that at least some of these leaders have spent time in the U.S. armed forces.

Many belong to new organizations like Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, the Traditionalist Workers Party and True Cascadia, which have seen their numbers expand dramatically in the past year.  Most of these groups view themselves as part of a broader “alt-right” movement that represents the extreme edge of right-wing politics in the U.S.

These organizations exhibited unprecedented organization and tactical savvy.  Hundreds of racist activists converged on a park on Friday night, striding through the darkness in groups of five to 20 people.  A handful of leaders with headsets and handheld radios gave orders as a pickup truck full of torches pulled up nearby.  Within minutes, their numbers had swelled well into the hundreds.  They quickly and efficiently formed a lengthy procession and begun marching, torches alight, through the campus of the University of Virginia.

Despite intense interest from the media, police and local anti-racists, the white supremacists kept the location of their intimidating nighttime march secret until the last moment.

The next day, the far-right forces — likely numbering between 1,000 and 1,500 — marched to Emancipation Park.  Once again, they arrived in small blocs under military-style command.  The racist groups were at least as organized and disciplined as the police, who appeared to have no clear plan for what to do when the violence escalated.  The racist groups stood their ground at the park and were not dislodged for many hours.

For many of them, this will be seen as victory.  “Every rally we're going to be more organized, we're going to have more people, and it's going to be harder and harder for them to shut us down,” said a spokesman for Vanguard America, a fascist group, who gave his name as “Thomas.”  “White people are pretty good at getting organized.”

And though police arrested James Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man, for allegedly driving a Dodge Charger into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and wounding many others, the white supremacists generally avoided arrests.

They also outmaneuvered their anti-racist opponents.  On Saturday, a multifaith group met at the historic First Baptist Church for a sunrise prayer ceremony featuring academic Cornel West and pastor Traci Blackmon.  The anti-racists, many of them clergy members, walked quietly to Emancipation Park, where they were vastly outnumbered by the white supremacists.

Later, a band of more aggressive counter-protesters showed up at the park, chanting “Appalachia coming at ya.  Nazi punks we're gonna smash ya!”  These militant “antifa,” or antifascists, were also repelled by the white supremacists.

Given the scale of the protests, the far-right groups suffered few injuries.  That was particularly notable given the fact that multiple people near the protests were armed.  Throughout the weekend, right-wing and left-wing militias equipped with assault rifles, pistols, and body armor patrolled the streets of Charlottesville.  (Virginia is an “open carry” state, so gun owners are legally allowed to tote around firearms.)

Many of the armed men viewed their role as maintaining a modicum of order.  A “Three Percenter” militia out of New York state posted itself near Emancipation Park with the intention of keeping anti-racists from disrupting the rally.  The group says it disapproves of racism but is dedicated to defending the free speech rights of all.

Blocks away, Redneck Revolt, a leftist militia from North Carolina, watched over the perimeter of a park where anti-racists had gathered, committed to preventing violent attacks by the white supremacist groups.

The presence of heavily armed citizens may have played a role in the decision of authorities to largely stay out of the violent skirmishes between the white supremacists and their opponents.

Those who actually marched included many new to the right-wing cause.  The victory of Donald Trump in last year's presidential election has energized a whole wave of young people who were previously apathetic or apolitical, rally organizer Eli Mosley told ProPublica.  The President has served as “megaphone” for far-right ideas, he said.

Mosley and his comrades are seeking to draw in as many of these newly politicized young people as possible.  “We're winning,” he said.  “We're targeting the youth and making a movement that appeals to the youth.”

Some of those who've gravitated to the extreme right milieu are former liberals — like Mosley's fellow rally organizer Jason Kessler — and supporters of Bernie Sanders.  Many are ex-Libertarians.

“I was a libertarian,” said Mosley, as white supremacists chanted “Whose streets?  Our streets!” in the background.  “I looked around and noticed that most Libertarians were white men.  I decided that the left was winning with identity politics, so I wanted to play identity politics too.  I'm fascinated by leftist tactics, I read Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King …  This is our '60s movement.”

DOMESTIC TERRORISM - Charlottesville

White Nationalists and Supremacists are terrorists and should never be tolerated.

"White nationalist rally brings clashes in Charlottesville" PBS NewsHour 8/12/2017

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SUMMARY:  Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville on Saturday as hundreds of white nationalists and alt-right activists clashed with police and counter-protesters.  It was the second rally to protest the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park.  The NewsHour's P.J. Tobia joins Hari Sreenivasan from Charlottesville.

"Charlottesville mayor blames Trump for violent weekend" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

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SUMMARY:  As locals grappled with the aftermath of a white nationalist rally that left three people dead on Saturday, Mayor Michael Signer wasted no words on denouncing President Donald Trump for what he says is his culpability in the violence.  But a white nationalist leader told The NewsHour's P.J. Tobia that the radical left is at fault.

"Local gives history of civil rights in Charlottesville" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

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SUMMARY:  Rallies on Friday and Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia that were reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan gatherings shook people who have for generations fought for civil rights in Virginia and across the country.  Activist, writer and educator Leontyne Peck with the University of Virginia’s President’s Commission on Slavery unpacks the weekend’s events with Hari Sreenivasan.

"U.S. sees 300 violent attacks inspired by far right every year" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2017

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SUMMARY:  Despite the nation’s focus on Islamic terrorism since 9/11, homegrown, right-wing extremists have also killed dozens of Americans.  Peter Bergen, the director of the National Security Studies program for New America, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the toll of homegrown terrorism in light of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally car attack.