Tag: Charlottesville
Why blame Trump for saying nice things about ultra-rightists in Charlottesville while dishing out even more extravagant praise for neo-nazis in Kiev?
The political opponents of President Trump have found a new lever for sabotaging his presidency – his alleged embrace of white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. He is now being labelled a «sympathizer» of fascists and bringing America’s international image into disrepute. Cue the impeachment proceedings.
Americans have been so entangled in the Middle East for the past few decades that they have begun interpreting their own politics in the terms of that region. Is driving a car into protesters an ISIL tactic? Is pulling down statues of Confederate generals like destroying ancient Assyrian antiquities? Is Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad a mass murderer or a bulwark against fundamentalist hordes? How helpful is this importation of symbols from a region the United States has done so much to roil?
Every living nation needs symbols. They tell us who we are as one people, in what we believe, and on what basis we organize our common life. This fact seems to be very clear to the current leadership in Russia, particularly to President Vladimir Putin, in restoring and reunifying a country rent by three generations of Red and White enmity to achieve a national synthesis…
