Opinions

Trump’s ‘defining moment’? Suggesting those who espouse hate have moral equivalence with those who decry it

I listened to President Donald Trump's rambling, and at times incoherent, press conference on Tuesday. After efforts by some of his staff to corral him, and focus on a specific message that condemned neo-Nazis and the KKK, the president stepped back into the fray by suggesting that the two sides in this debate have moral equivalence.

The president is wrong.

There is no moral equivalence between those who espouse hate and those who decry it. There is no moral equivalence between those who advocate for the perpetrators of the greatest threats our country has ever faced, and those who oppose their views.

From an American perspective, one side is wrong, one is right. The president should know the difference between such a basic concept as right and wrong, and he should condemn those who believe that, in this day, there is somehow an equivalency between the two.

Instead, the president said there are two sides to the Charlottesville, Virginia, events and somehow that makes everyone part of the blame. I understand there are legitimate issues when differences in opinion lead to discussion, dialogue and debate.

We expect the weight of an argument to prevail through that process — not by forcing our opinion on others, or threatening them.

That is the legacy of a civil society. But when one side espouses the idealism of the two greatest threats the republic has ever faced — the Civil War and Nazi Germany — and backs it up with violence, while the other opposes it, there is truly only one side we as a nation should embrace.

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That side preserved our union. It's also the argument that has consistently won on the battlefield and has been defended for more than 200 years. Until this president. Until now.

The president made a further argument suggesting once we removed statues of the Confederacy, we would next remove those of the nation's founding fathers, some of whom were slaveowners. The president should know better.

The difference is simple. One group of these individuals founded our republic, the other group were traitors who sought to destroy it and were defeated.

The president is right about one thing: There were two sides to the Civil War and World War II. But there was no equivalence between the two when it came to our fundamental values.

In the Civil War, the South defended the institution of slavery, shrouding its defense in a "states' rights" argument that would allow its states to maintain slavery even if it was repugnant to humanity.

As a country, we rejected that argument and hundreds of thousands willingly died to preserve the union and defeat that vision. It was the greatest threat to our republic since the founding. Those who sought to destroy our republic were not heroes; they committed treason.

In World War II, democracies and others united under U.S. leadership to defeat the greatest threat to the world's freedom it had ever faced — a Nazi vision and belief that exterminated millions in the most ruthless of ways, and sought to destroy the foundations of our society.

Those who now carry the symbols of Hitler's Germany, those who befriend Nazis, those who embrace an ideal that millions fought and died to defeat are not patriots. They are the opposite of that and their claim to be patriots defiles memory, history and honor.

Now I fear we may face a third great threat to democracy: Breaking the trust that's the fabric of our society.

When we lose our ability to know right from wrong, when our response to the things we have historically fought against is ambiguity or ambivalence — even acceptance — then we break trust in our institutions and our democracy.

For years I have stood by, and through my inaction, have effectively defended this deterioration of rational dialogue. When one side used facts to backup its argument, and the other side did not, I didn't speak out against the false equivalence – even though it frustrated me.

When info-news programs insisted on giving equal time to arguments that did not have equal substance, I did not object. I struggled with the disconnect of wanting to ensure no voice was stifled versus the knowledge that the information provided was inaccurate, false, misleading and inflammatory.

I watched like so many others as our rhetoric grew heated. I counseled patience, openness, thoughtfulness and truly believed the America I knew and loved would reject vile dialogue. That America would reject demagogic pronouncements that were clearly false.

But our president has not rejected these sentiments. He has promoted them as the moral equivalence of our cherished ideals. But the idea that both sides are at fault is simply false.

He is wrong. If we are to stop this erosion of American ideals and morality, we must stand against this behavior — especially when it emanates from the president.

By not speaking out more forcefully against injustice, we allow these seeds of hate and anger to grow and threaten the fabric of our nation.

"You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?" President Trump said Tuesday.

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Perhaps it would be helpful for him to review the comments of Justin Moore, the Grand Dragon of the Loyal White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, who observed this week, "I'm sorta glad that them people got hit and I'm glad that girl died. They were a bunch of communists out there protesting against somebody's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all."

Mr. Moore is where it should stop.

"Where does it stop?" is a good question we all should ask ourselves. It's a question the president needs to ask himself before it really is too late for our country.

Steve Bannon, Trump's advisor, called the president's comments a "defining moment." If so, he is defining himself as opposing our most cherished values.

It's time for the president to stand up for America's ideals and defend them, just as he swore to do. If not, then it's time for him to resign and stop disgracing the office he swore to uphold.

Tom Begich is a lifelong Alaskan, a state senator representing District J, one of the most diverse Senate districts in the country, a musician and a consultant on justice and education issues.

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