In the old Soviet Union, after going slow for the first three weeks or so of each month, factory workers engaged in the practice of last-minute “storming” to meet their manufacturing quotas by the end-of-the-month deadline. Like many state legislatures, California’s has its own version of storming, squeezing passage of buckets of bills and resolutions into the final few days before adjourning for the year.
One such action was passage Friday evening of a non-binding resolution in the State Assembly denouncing Donald Trump for his response to the violence initiated by neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members in Charlottesville, Va., August 12, and calling on Trump to apologize and Congress to censure him, which would be a rare act in both cases.
Trump said after the protest and counter-protest in Charlottesville last month that “many sides” were to blame for violence there that included the murder by car of an anti-white supremacist activist, Heather Heyer. He subsequently gave a half-hearted denunciation of neo-Nazis and the KKK, but nevertheless repeated that “both sides” were to blame and also that “there were very fine people, on both sides.” Nazis = anti-Nazis. A truly twisted view that ought to be met with barf bags in addition to censure.
With barely over half the 80 members of the assembly present, the vote in favor of the resolution was 41-5. David Siders reports:
“The KKK and the neo-Nazis depict hate and terror and death,” Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, the bill’s Democratic author, said on the Assembly floor. “And President Trump’s comments to legitimize these groups opens up wounds that many have experienced over many, many years. His comments legitimize these groups that promote hate.”
Although House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has introduced a bill to censure Trump over his Charlottesville comments, there’s zero chance any such thing will happen. Especially after he signed a congressional resolution on Thursday that specifically condemned "white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups."
But critics noted that in his signing statement, Trump condemned “the recent violence in Charlottesville and oppose hatred, bigotry, and racism in all forms,” but avoided naming the Klan and neo-Nazis, once again feeding the false equivalency that these white supremacy groups and those who confront and oppose are them are morally the same.