The Left, Not Trump or Republicans, Empowered Neo-Nazis

Why do Republicans, let alone President Trump, need to disavow Neo-Nazis and white supremacists? That they're being asked to do so is based on the assumption that the left's smearing of conservatives as such is valid. It's not.

To engage in the identity politics of which both the far right and the left are so fond, I'm Jewish and my husband is black; we're the poster children for everything the haters want to destroy. Do I condemn the Neo-Nazi bigots and their violence? It goes without saying. I also condemn leftist and Islamist violence. How many of those currently demanding contrition will do the same? 

Neo-Nazism and white supremacism have been marginalized in this country for decades and it is only the left's gratuitous accusations of racism, not to mention constantly attacking white people as a group, that have accorded these movements a newfound sense of legitimacy. Trump did not empower them; they have rallied around his opposition to leftist hegemony.

For years, leftists have cried wolf and labeled everyone on earth a fascist and a Nazi. Now the real deal is raising its ugly head and they're incredulous that much of the American public isn't buying their hysteria. Or that their opportunistic attempt to demonize the country's foundations by destroying statues and monuments in ISIS-like fashion isn't welcome. Except, of course, by the cowardly bureaucrats in charge of the localities in which they're running amok.

Will the left win the cultural civil war it began? Given that Trump is the only politician in the country directly confronting its ideological offensive, the odds are in its favor. But it ain't over 'til it's over.

Cross-posted from Facebook.