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> The most egregious lie peddled by the media is the "Very Fine People" statement, which, is claimed to be a reference to white supremacists, when in fact in he
> The most egregious lie peddled by the media is the "Very Fine People" statement, which, is claimed to be a reference to white supremacists, when in fact in he clarifies in the very speech, "and I am not talking about the white supremacists, they should be condemned totally"
This is silly. For one, news outlets did report his statement in full - perhaps not in the headline, but they did give his full statement in the articles. However, you're leaving out that he made a statement a few hours after the attack the condemned bigoty and violence "on many sides". He only ever issued a clarification days later due to the outcry against him not condemning the literal neo-nazis and white supremacists.
Second, you're also leaving out the fact that he goes on to clarify that the "good people" he's talking about were the ones there the night before, at the explicitly white-nationalist torch rally[1] on August 11th, where they chanted nazi and white-nationalist slogans. The idea that anybody there constitutes "good people" or that not all of them were white-supremacists is absolutely ridiculous.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally#August_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally#August_1...
Getting far away from the original point here but I'll address it.
The statement was reported in full - technically correct but my claim references the summarisation of his remarks that is made frequently, even to this date, which omit important context.
You are correct that the remarks made immediately after the event referenced violence on many sides, this is an entirely different topic, however. Like I said, this too is technically correct, and readers and viewers are free to form their own opinions about the fact that he chose to frame it this way in his initial remarks. This is not, however the "very fine people" statement, which is a reference to non violent people who were having a debate over removal of the statue in question, many of whom were not white supremacists.
As for "night before", this too is very clearly qualified:
"No, no. There were people in that rally -- and I looked the night before -- if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them."
Now you might ask yourself which group of quiet protesters he has been shown by his staff, but it's quite clear that he is of the impression that they are not white supremacists.
Again, this is not a defense of the statement or a defense of the man's eloquence, which he obviously lacks to an incredible degree. The allegation that he called neo nazis fine people is bad for your country. If people in your country believe their President actually said that, isn't that terrible for your society? The American media should not be above criticism for playing these kinds of tricks.
> which is a reference to non violent people who were having a debate over removal of the statue in question, many of whom were not white supremacists.
Where are these people, exactly? The 'Unite the Right' rally was a white supremacist and neo-nazi rally. They chanted racist things, has nazi flags, was organized by two neo-nazis, and had scheduled neo-nazi and white supremacist speakers. I don't really know how more direct you can get on what kind of rally it was. The idea that tacking a "except for the white supremacists" on the end and that makes the statement somehow different is ridiculous, that covers literally everyone that was there.
And you're complaining about headlines, obviously they don't have the entire context, if it was a paragraph long it wouldn't be a headline. The context they did omit (Which, as I noted, really doesn't make things any better), is still in the articles.
> Now you might ask yourself which group of quiet protesters he has been shown by his staff, but it's quite clear that he is of the impression that they are not white supremacists.
There was no "group of quiet protesters", that's the problem. That night there were neo-nazis and white-supremacists, that's it. The whole point of the criticism is that he's pretending like that side wasn't as bad as it actually was, or that there was somehow good people in it - if he has the impression that these people weren't white supremacists or neo-nazis, that a pretty big deal.
And the idea that "his staff" showed him something misleading is simply untrue, as Trump himself said he waited three days to hold his speech because he wanted to get "all the facts". If it was really that hard for him to find videos of the event that's trivial to find online (it's even in the wikipedia article I linked), perhaps he shouldn't be in his current position :P But I think it is fair for the media (or anybody else) to assume he did see them.
> The allegation that he called neo nazis fine people is bad for your country. If people in your country believe their President actually said that, isn't that terrible for your society? The American media should not be above criticism for playing these kinds of tricks.
Except that, he did say that, about a white supremacist rally. The media even asked for a clarification and he doubled down and talked about the "people from the night before" which were even more explicitly white supremacist.
If you want to claim the media somehow mislead everybody on what he said then show me one of those "good people" he's talking about - who are apparently fine people despite going to an explicitly neo-nazi and white supremacist rally.
> If you want to claim the media somehow mislead everybody on what he said then show me one of those "good people" he's talking about - who are apparently fine people despite going to an explicitly neo-nazi and white supremacist rally.
I will do this - but again I will reiterate that it is one thing entirely to say that the President got his facts wrong, and another thing to say that he knowingly called White Supremacists very fine people. Those are completely different things.
Good people like you and I can also be guilty of the first when we incorrectly reference the wrong people. In the second case you are talking about someone who knowingly references a group of white supremacists as good people. This is contradicted by his own words.
Again, I really don't want to derail the original point, but since I used this as an example, I feel like I should back everything up with facts so that it's clear that I'm making these points from a position of having researched the topic thoroughly.
As for the statue debate and the very fine people - I will first set the context of the statue debate because it is very common that people simplify it as "everyone against the removal was a White Supremacist", so let me tackle that line of thinking first.
The context is that the vote in the city council to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee passed 3-2. The Mayor of Charlottesville Mike Signer and councilwoman Kathy Galvin were the people against this. The Mayor wrote about his reasoning here in this article
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/24/im-a-progressive-mayor-heres-why-i-voted-no-on-removing-my-citys-confederate-statue/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/24/...
The Mayor's op-ed discusses several reasons for his vote. Quoting from article:
> One striking finding in the commission’s official report: “Numerous Charlottesville African American residents who have lived through decades of suppression of their history oppose removal on the grounds that it would be yet another example of hiding their experience. For them, transforming the statues in place forces remembrance of the dominance of slavery and Jim Crow white supremacy.” This echoed what I heard in town hall meetings at black churches and private conversations with dozens of members of my community. One noted leader of an African American mentorship organization, for instance, told me he believes the statues should remain as a “teachable moment” about our history.
> Local civil rights legend Eugene Williams, who was recognized by the Virginia General Assembly in 2015 for his pioneering work in affordable housing, has spoken out against removal, saying he wants the city stopped “from trying to destroy history.” So has Earvin Jordan, an African American Civil War historian at the University of Virginia, who says “Civilization should be constructive rather than destructive,” noting, “Charlottesville has enough space to erect new statues.”
This is all to say that the backdrop of the statue removal was already a complex issue involving both white supremacists and very fine people who were against the removal. This was not an issue as simple as "the only people against the removal of the statue are White Supremacists".
The day of the "Unite the Right" rally was actually one of many events concerning the statue in 2017. Previous events were held in May and July of 2017 as well, one of which was organized by White Supremacist Richard Spencer and another by the KKK.
On the "night before" the Richard Spencer event in May (not the Unite the Right Rally), there was a candle-lit peaceful vigil to protest the arrival of Richard Spencer and his gang the next day. This crowd included the Mayor as well, thus being a composition of "very fine people on both sides" and "the night before". It's quite likely that Trump mixed up the Spencer event of May with the Kessler event of August. In my opinion (feel free to disagree), I'd argue that the media should have picked up on this and checked with him. The media didn't follow-up on this. I'm a random person in another country. If I know these facts, the media should have been able to piece this together too and call him out for having his facts mixed up. He has done this stupidly before by saying "did you see what happened in Sweden last night?". The media instead went with another story. A sinister one.
The night before the Kessler event in August, there was also a peaceful protest attended by 500 members of clergy and others. It's unclear whether the Mayor was present, or whether the civil rights leader Eugene Williams were present, but the chances that there were zero people who were against the removal of the statue, are quite low.
As for the day of the August Rally (Unite the Right), the New York Times interviewed a woman named Michelle Piercy, who was there with a militia group: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/politics/trump-republicans-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/politics/trump-republi....
Michelle Piercy is part of a militia group called "American Warrior Revolution". These guys were present at the May event as well. There's Facebook videos on their page from the May event where they make their opinions of the statue removal known (against removal). They were present at these events because of previous run-ins between Antifa and the Alt-Right in other parts of the country. Their stated purpose is to be a "peacekeeping force" to ensure that everyone has free speech. On the day of the Unite the Right Rally, African American members of their group were present as well, including Michelle Piercy's partner. Along with them there were several other militia groups who were present for the same reasons. Eventually they were asked to leave by the police, and eventually sued by the city, and were asked to sign a document swearing they would never return to the city while armed again.
This would satisfy many examples of "very fine people" who were against the removal of the Lee Statue, many of whom were present across multiple events at Charlottesville.