Some Lessons From Charlottesville

This article was first published by New English Review.



We have not heard the last from Charlottesville. On the contrary, we will be hearing about it for years. It will be the central theme of interfaith events far off into the future. It will be part and parcel of liberal media talking points about the dangers from the right. In short, the entire conservative movement will be demonized by the words and deeds of the followers of David Duke and Richard Spencer. How do we conservatives deal with what happened this week in Charlottesville?

As a conservative, and a white one at that, I reject people like Duke and Spencer. Since I am no white nationalist, they do not speak for me. I have learned to live with people of other skin hues (including my wife) ever since I was a young man.

In addition, I do not consider the crowd that showed up in Charlottesville to be conservative. There is nothing conservative about a Nazi flag, of which at least one was documented in the so-called pro-white rally. Nor does conservatism identify with the Confederate flag. Nor does conservatism identify with a torchlight procession, which occurred the previous evening on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. When white nationalists walk around at night holding torches, it brings back memories of the KKK, an organization that also participated in the rally as did neo-Nazis.

I could and should point out that the despicable leftist and anarchist ANTIFA crowd was present on the other side and engaged in fighting and throwing of objects just as did the white nationalists. Unfortunately, their presence and their deeds will be ignored by the media and the left. But it wasn't ANTIFA that drove a car into a crowd of people injuring some 20 and killing one. It was a Nazi sympathizer named James Fields.

I have written often about the absurd demonization of white people on college campuses in recent years. Whites on campus are portrayed as being inheritently racist and privileged. Some knucklehead students and even faculty have suggested that white people need to disappear from campus and from the world. Even genocide against whites has been suggested by a few whacked out professors. If there are two groups who are under siege in academia, it is whites and Jews. In that respect, I strongly maintain that modern anti-semitism comes mostly from the left-married to pro-Palestinian and Islamist forces. Yet there were Nazi flags being waved by white nationalists in Charlottesville.

In response, my message has not been that whites need to arm themselves and fight back with hate and violence. My message is that whites in America are not the enemy of non-whites-with the obvious exception of those who showed up to rally in Charlottesville and listened to the words of Duke and Spencer. We are part of the solution if we all sit down and talk civilly to each other and express our concerns openly but again, civilly.

We all need to condemn what happened in Charlottesville. President Trump was correct when he condemned the violence and bigotry that came from "many sides"-as inartfully as he may have expressed it.   He has now unequivocally condemned the white nationalism of Duke and Spencer. Liberals should also condemn the actions of ANTIFA.

Liberals and conservatives must take back the discourse that is being dominated by the extremes. When either side drifts so far to the left or right, they  both become fascist and are no longer recognizable as liberals or conservatives.