slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Of course his response to Charlottesville was late and insufficient – this is who he is.

By Jesse Berney, Rolling Stone

UPDATE: Trump gave a press conference Tuesday during which he essentially unsaid all the good things he asserted in his speech Monday. While he claimed he still condemned neo-N**is and w***e s*********ts, he also said there were "many fine people" protesting alongside the people carrying swastika f**gs and shields bearing r****t symbols. He expressed clearly his opposition to taking down Confederate monuments. He once again blamed both sides equally for the violence that broke out. He confirmed his complete inability to understand what s******c r****m is and his own role in perpetuating it.

The moment that struck me in Trump's make-up speech Monday afternoon wasn't when he declared r****m "evil" or finally name-checked the KKK, neo-N**is and w***e s*********ts. It was his remark about the f**g. "No matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws," he said. "We all salute the same great f**g."

Maybe Trump should have watched the news a little more closely this weekend. If he had, he might have seen large numbers of Americans carrying and saluting f**gs that weren't the Stars and Stripes. Confederate f**gs, obscure r****t insignia and straight-up swastikas were all on display.

The r****ts and N**is and w***e s*********ts of all stripes who carried that f**g were heartened by Trump's failure to denounce them or their ideology in the immediate aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Heyer. And his tepid, reluctant, TelePrompTer -fed denunciation of r****m days later appears to have done little to discourage their belief that he supports them in the deepest, darkest, most wizened recesses of his heart.

Though it's technically true that no one but Donald Trump knows what's in Donald Trump's heart, he's given us some pretty good clues. He likely thinks swastika-toting N**is and hood-wearing KKK members are bad guys – those are the easy targets everyone knows we're supposed to denounce – but the entitled, clean-cut, polo-wearing, torch-bearing r****ts chanting about how they won't be replaced? Those are the people who put him into office. They're his people. And they know he's their leader because they know Donald Trump is, like they are, r****t.

Oh, they wouldn't put it that way. They think the real r****m is the affirmative action that gives people of color a chance in a world that hands people who look like me privilege from birth. They believe the real r****ts are the ones who declare black l***s m****r. ("What, ours don't?") But like the president they cheer, they're r****t as hell.

You don't even have to look into Trump's heart to see his r****m. You only have to look at all the things he's done and said over the years – from the early Seventies, when he settled with the Justice Department over accusations of housing discrimination, to Monday, when just hours after his speech news broke he is considering pardoning anti-immigrant sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Arpaio was also Trump's partner in crime in pushing the birther conspiracy that promulgated the ugly lie our first black president was born in Kenya. We've conveniently forgotten (if not forgiven) how Trump spent years – years! – pushing a conspiracy based on nothing more than the assumption that a black man with a funny name couldn't possibly be a genuine American, not like we are.

Trump also has a weird obsession with the superiority of his own genes in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That may explain why r****m so often seems like his default setting, like the time he took out a full-page ad demanding the execution of five kids of color accused of raping a jogger in Central Park. Even in 2016, years after they were proven innocent, Trump stood by his actions.

Last year was when Trump put his r****m on full display for the country to see. From launching his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists, to going to war with the parents of a Muslim soldier k**led in battle, to encouraging violence against minority protesters at his rally, to promising to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, he built a p**********l campaign on racial resentment and fear. Those were deliberate choices he made. His campaign stoked white entitlement and outrage at every turn, sending out dog whistles and sometimes glaring billboards that this was the campaign for angry white people.

He didn't improve as president. There was no pivot. Just weeks ago, he gave an ugly speech to a group of police officers during which he described gang violence in creepy, almost loving detail in a ham-handed attempt to smear immigrants as violent criminals. He started a commission to perpetuate the myth of rampant v***r f***d – part of a long-running conservative scheme to deny black people and others their right to v**e.

And just hours after he grudgingly gave his speech condemning r****m in the wake of enormous public pressure, Trump retweeted Jack Posobiec, a prominent alt-right figure who's been featured on the r****t conspiracy site Infowars and who brought a sign reading "RAPE MELANIA" to a protest to frame anti-Trump activists.

The same day Trump called r****m "evil," he mollified his base of r****ts by promoting a r****t on his huge platform. These are not the actions of a man who is genuinely concerned about r****m.

His speech wasn't enough. It's not just that it came three days too late, or that he read it with all the conviction of a hostage video. If Donald Trump wants to say anything meaningful about r****m, he needs to acknowledge his own complicity. He has to admit to his past sins, and commit to a future of activism from the most powerful perch in the world to fight r****m in all its forms. And I'm not holding my breath for that.

R****m isn't limited to the thugs marching in Charlottesville. It pervades American culture like humidity in the D.C. summer air. You don't get to say guys in hoods are bad and declare the job done. For white people, fighting r****m (and all bigotry) must be a constant effort that includes self-reflection.

Self-reflection isn't Trump's strong point. He may well believe it when he says he's the least r****t person in the world. But we don't need to read his mind to know the t***h. He has built a legacy of race-baiting throughout his career – from his apartment buildings in the outer boroughs right into the White House.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

As the saying goes "it's good to be King", unfortunately, Trump isn't King..............so it ain't so good being Trump. I guess that's why he keeps trying to be somebody else all the time. He really needs some new script writers, or better yet..........a new actor to play him as President.

Morgan

Let's face it, the guy doesn't know when he's ahead...and to shut up, then again he never does shut up.