Trump's Weak Sauce; Neo-Nazi Edition

President-elect Donald Trump told New York Times reporters on Tuesday that he disavows the fringe political movement that many say helped power his candidacy.

But he also rejected the idea that he bears responsibility for the growing prominence of groups espousing white nationalist viewpoints.

"I don’t think so, Dean," Trump said in response to a question from Times executive editor Dean Baquet about if he has energized the "alt-right."
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“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," Trump told Baquet. "It’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why.”

Asked point-blank about the conference featuring Spencer, Trump again disavowed any support.

"I disavow and condemn them," Trump told Times reporters. He did chide them for continuing to ask about the topic though, telling one questioner: "Boy, you are really into [this issue]."

That is pretty fucking weak sauce. That's sort of a "Mission Impossible" grade denial.

Trump wasn't so quick to disavow those people during his election campaigns. And when he did so, it was with only tepid words, interspersed with re-tweeting shit from neo-nazi web sites. His disavowals now are hardly much more forceful, and notice that he was also trying to place the blame for the issue on those who are calling him out about it.

If Trump wanted to use his "best words", he could. That he hasn't forcefully told the neo-nazis to crawl back into the dark, fetid swaps from which they came, that he hasn't pledged to aggressively prosecute hate crimes speaks volumes.

On a separate point: If you look around, you will find "alt-right" conservatives who say "oh, the neo-nazis are only a small segment of the alt-right, it's sooo unfair to judge us by them."

Well, horseshit. Maybe their mommas never told them that they would be known by the company that they keep. Rotten apples-barrel. dogs-fleas. You get the point.

Besides that, for decades, the Right, and now the alt-right, has been using "liberal" as a pejorative. And now they complain that it's unfair that we point out that the alt-right is infested with neo-nazis? Riight.

Maybe there aren't a high percentage of neo-nazis in the alt-right. But they are there, there's no disputing that. The rest of the alt-right, including Breitbart, has been happy to let them stay.

The alt-right is tolerating the neo-nazis, they own them.