I'll play devil's advocate. Part of the Charlottesville pro-statue crowd were "heritage not hate" types who grew up with those town statues as part of their loc

I'll play devil's advocate. Part of the Charlottesville pro-statue crowd were "heritage not hate" types who grew up with those town statues as part of their local history and had no personal racial animus. While I think they're misguided, I think they can still be "good people". They heard of the rally amidst the trend of statues getting taken down, and showed up without knowing of the organizer or who else would show up. Before you dismiss this out of reflex - most Women's March attendees had no idea that some organizers of the march were connected to anti-Semitism and a speaker was convicted for torturing a gay man to death (Donna Hylton). Of course, this part of the crowd was not sensational and was not covered so perceptions were shaped accordingly. The part that was repeatedly covered was the neo-Nazi vans showing up later in the day (the original attendees started leaving when this happened), and the subsequent brawls and vehicle terrorism. Much like how there were well-intentioned statue protesters and violent antifa marxists, there were also well-intentioned statue advocates and violent neo-nazis. In light of that the statement of "good people on both sides" is not malicious or technically wrong, though it was unnecessary and tone-deaf.