Some additional thoughts on Charlottesville.
First, liberals should condemn lawless and violent behavior by those on the Left, and conservatives should condemn lawless and violent behavior by those on the Right. There is a temptation when this is done on both sides to temper that criticism by adding a “But . . . ” — that is, to say, “Of course, it is wrong to kill the police, but we must recognize that black lives do matter,” etc., or “Of course, it is wrong to ram a car into a protestor, but many protestors on the Left are violent types, too,” etc.
The trouble is that, if you do this in reaction to something that is indefensible — like a murder or a riot — then the other side will understandably feel that you are not only tempering your criticism but excusing it or at least signaling that it’s understandable and therefore forgivable. And so the other side will get really upset. Again, this is true on both sides: Conservatives didn’t like it when liberals added a “but” sentence in their response to riots and police murders, and that’s why liberals (and others) are upset with President Trump’s equivocations here.
It’s okay, of course, to make these broader and more nuanced points in some other context, but not when the action being discussed and in our face is one where nuance is unacceptable and clarity is essential.
Second, and for what it’s worth, here’s a piece that I wrote for NRO sixteen years ago on a hot issue at that time, namely whether the Confederate battle flag should be removed from the Mississippi state flag. That’s a different issue from what to do with statues and the like, but some of the points I made then have some relevance now.
Finally, bear in mind that the media love drama and have a vested interested in convincing the public that the end of the world is at hand and so it really needs to keep watching the television, buying the newspaper, visiting this website, etc. Extra, extra, read all about it! That’s not to say that what happened in Charlottesville was not newsworthy, and I do feel a little bit like Frank Drebin in this clip when I urge people not to obsess about marching and murderous neo-Nazis; what’s more, a president’s pronouncements can on their own raise issues bigger than what he is pronouncing on. Nonetheless, a few extremist kooks and one bad weekend with one murder in one town do not a Weimar Republic make.