Charlottesville…so many thoughts. I don’t even know why I feel the need to put my thoughts online. I guess hoping someone else either 1.) feels the same way I do and can discuss or 2.) someone says something that really “clicks” to me and helps solidify my traveling thoughts that too often go in circles.
On one hand, I think “why is the media giving so much attention to these morons?!” I feel like there is such a tiny fraction of our nation that would want to side with these people, and maybe if we jut ignore them completely, they will quietly die down since they aren’t getting the attention they are seeking.
But then I think…can we afford to be silent? I have read so many books the last few years about the Holocaust, just TRYING to wrap my head around HOW these events actually happened and in the not so distant past. I still can’t understand how an entire nation of perfectly normal people decided it was OK to murder babies and children and families. But I think one thing that stands out to me in each book is that everyone thought “that can’t happen here” or “we are safe, it’s only a few people targeting a small group”. And we know the deadly results of that type of thinking.
Another thing that is making my mind go in circles is the people posting things like “if you voted for Trump, you are a racist horrible person”. 1.) That is completely hypocritical to be so judgemental of an entire group of people based on a voting decision they made based on many factors and 2.) That would mean approx 50% of our nation is racist, which I refuse to believe. I stand by the fact that almost all the people I know who voted for Trump did it out of desperation and lack of a viable option, not out of a sense of admiration for Trump and everything he does.
Part of me wants to bury my head in the sand, delete all social media, and pretend these things aren’t happening because it is SO hard for me to comprehend people that honestly want to wear Nazi symbols and want to hurt other people based on their skin color or religion. I will never be able to understand it. But a bigger part of me can’t look away, because what if that’s how it all started in the Holocaust? Was it regular people like me who have the privilege of deciding if I want to pay attention or not that let things happen the way they did? I want to talk about it. I want to help others. I want to make everyone understand that the division between Trump supporters and Trump haters does nothing to help anyone. I want to strive every day to talk to someone with different views than me and understand where they are coming from. I want to make it known that I think what happened in Charlottesville is absolutely disgusting and not acceptable and needs to be stopped.
That’s my thoughts for the day. Welcome to my brain 24/7.
The Three Bees 
I’ve been obsessed with my thoughts on this as well. I agree that 50% of our country is not racist. However, I was left scratching my head yesterday after Trump’s press conference. He stated that the “alt-left came at the alt-right with clubs…” and blame was on both sides. I have several issues with this and am concerned about the broader implications of this statement for the Republican Party and the country as whole. It seems to me that this statement is intentionally divisive. It implies a few untruths that confound the entire argument he is attempting to make. By stating first that there were “some good people there”, simply protesting the removal of a Confederate statue (with every right to be there because they had permits) and that those people were attacked by the left, it implies that all left leaning individuals would be against these statues and all right leaning people are for these statues remaining. In reality, it doesn’t appear there were many people there about the statue and instead this was seen as an opportunity for the hate groups to show their power. Even if we assume there was a peacefully protesting group, in no way aligned with the hate, we would then have to assume something else. We would have to assume that the people on the right would be somehow tolerant or accepting of being in the same group as Nazis and White Supremacist groups while protesting these statues being removed. That they would somehow be more passionate about the statues staying up than being in the presence of hate groups, thus eventually joining forces with the Nazis and Supremacy groups in opposition of the “left” that was attacking them. I don’t believe this rhetoric. As you said, 50% of the country is not racist and I assume the majority of Republicans are sick to their stomachs about the hate and would have been fighting against this hate side by side with those that lean left. If the left came at the right instead of the protestors of hate coming at the Nazi’s, then it certainly paints a different picture of the events and can absolve Trump of any accountability of incitement and allowance of this behavior from the Nazi groups and White Supremacy groups. If it is the right against the left, then he did nothing wrong in defending his party (in his own mind) and has in no way empowered the hate groups. But if he instead really believes that his Republican base would be more tolerant of hate groups than aligning with the left on anything (in a fight against Nazis and White Supremacy), that is where the problem comes in. Trump is in essence assuming his voters are racist or at least tolerant of it from others. Because that they so dearly cling to the freedom of speech that they would not condemn the hateful rhetoric. It is a complete misrepresentation of the complexity of human political views and assumes that people are on polar opposite sides of this issue based on their political party. I don’t believe that is true either. As I said, this is not a left/right issue, but rather a good/evil issue. I don’t understand why Trump wouldn’t be able to clearly state that fact and why he instead turned it into an opportunity to further divide, instead of bring together the country. That is, in my opinion, his most important job and he is failing miserably at it. That’s my two cents for the day:) Thanks for giving me a place to get my thoughts in order:)
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