[jhp123]

when right wingers killed Heather Heyer, Trump called them "very fine people". When they killed Brian Sicknick, he called them heroes and pardoned them. If even 10 percent of the right had drawn a line against political violence after Jan 6 then we wouldn't be here today. They all embraced it when it was their side. Charlie himself chartered the buses and obstructed the resulting investigation.

[yepitwas]

It’s be really nice if they’d repudiated political violence by not electing Donald Trump president after he mused on stage about how his supporters could shoot Hillary if she won, in 2016.

That was the first big test of whether we were going to enter a new era of normalized political violence, and we (his voters, but collectively we as a country) flunked it. Wave of violence it is, I guess. Reckoned at the time it wouldn’t be much fun, and go figure, it ain’t.

[zahlman]

> when right wingers killed Heather Heyer, Trump called them "very fine people".

One person killed Heather Heyer.

Even Snopes doesn't endorse the "very fine people" narrative (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/). There is a single-page site dedicated to the topic: https://www.finepeoplehoax.net/. The Politifact coverage (https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...) makes it very clear that Trump's position was not at all consistent with the narrative you are trying to run with.

[jhp123]

The articles you linked actually confirm my point, did you mean to link something else?

As Snopes and politifact confirms, Trump made the following statement about the "Unite the Right" protestors, a group of racists, anti-semites, KKK and neo-Nazis who had staged a violent rally followed by a vehicular murder: "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides".

[zahlman]

>The articles you linked actually confirm my point, did you mean to link something else?

I meant to link exactly what I linked. The articles do not confirm your point.

You did not make a claim that he simply spoke those literal words. You used a paraphrase that misrepresented who he was referring to.

The sources do not say that he made this statement "about the 'Unite the Right' protestors". They also do not support describing them collectively as being all of those other things you call them.

I do not believe you are engaging in good faith, because someone engaging in good faith ought to notice the clear logical holes in the argument you are making. Especially since it has already been explained to you repeatedly by myself and others.

[jhp123]

of course he was talking about the "Unite the Right" protestors. The violence occurred at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, what other "side" could he possibly have been referring to?

[zahlman]

My purpose in this post is not to convince you of anything (because I don't believe this is possible at this point), but to make the logical fallacy in your rhetoric as clear as possible to onlookers. This problem is a matter of basic logic, not of opinion; thus you cannot change my mind about it. It's clear that this is not a discussion (https://thoughtcatalog.com/brandon-gorrell/2011/03/how-to-ha...) so I will not reply further.

> of course he was talking about the "Unite the Right" protestors.

There were many protestors with a wide variety of views on many topics among them, who conducted themselves in a wide variety of ways. (All the same is true, of course, of the counter-protestors). To say "there were many fine people on both sides" is to say that each group contained people who were worthy of praise.

You say they were "a group of racists, anti-semites, KKK and neo-Nazis", but not all of them were racists, not all of them were anti-Semites, not all of them were KKK members, and not all of them were neo-Nazis.

Your initial claim was:

> when right wingers killed Heather Heyer, Trump called them "very fine people"

This means that you are saying that he described murderers this way; and then you went on to conflate "right wingers" with a variety of other terms of abuse.

This is blatant and flagrant logical fallacy (the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition). It is not logically valid to take a statement made about people "being on a side" (i.e. in a group) and represent it as a judgement of the "side" in general, nor of other people on that "side".

James Alex Fields Jr. killed Heather Heyer. "Right wingers", objectively, did not. "Unite the Right protestors", similarly, objectively, did not.

Donald Trump did not call James Alex Fields Jr. a very fine person. He did not refer to racists as "very fine people". He did not refer to anti-Semites as "very fine people". He did not refer to KKK members as "very fine people". He did not refer to neo-Nazis as "very fine people". He did not describe murder, racism, anti-Semitism, KKK membership or neo-Nazism as virtuous.

He also did not refer to "right wingers" as "very fine people", although of course he presumably believes there is nothing wrong with being politically to the right.

As said by Snopes even in the article headline, Trump did not "call neo-Nazis and white supremacists 'very fine people'. As explained in the article, he explicitly "condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists outright and said he was specifically referring to those who were there only to participate in the statue protest." As shown in the original quotation, he explicitly described the violence as "vicious and horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch". Immediately before the pull quote, he explicitly said "and you had some very bad people in that group" (meaning the Unite the Right protestors). He explicitly elaborated the point: "But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly." When the reporter went on to ask a rhetorical question hinting at the same fallacy of composition, Trump explicitly distinguished the people he was praising from those he was criticizing: "The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people. Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you wanna call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest". Which is to say, he explicitly agreed that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are "rough, bad people", which is in fact the opposite of calling them "very fine people".

You use this as a talking point because you are trying to paint Trump as someone who praises murderers. But you know, or at least reasonably ought to know, that your narrative is contradicted by the evidence, because the evidence has been shown to you multiple times. The plain meaning of what Trump said is very nearly the opposite of what you're presenting it as.

[TheFreim]

You have unfortunately been misinformed about both examples that you brought up.

> when right wingers killed Heather Heyer, Trump called them "very fine people"

Trump did not call the killer a fine person, nor did he call everyone involved on the right fine people. He explicitly stated that there were, "some very bad people in that group." The "very fine people" was referencing those who were peacefully protesting both for and against the removal of historical monuments. If you watch the original video instead of the selective reporting this is all made very clear. You can watch or read the transcript of the "very fine people" press conference here: https://www.veryfinepeople.info

> When they killed Brian Sicknick, he called them heroes and pardoned them.

Brian Sicknick was not killed by anyone. The medical examiner ruled that he died of natural causes. There is no evidence that he was killed, which was reflected in the difficulty the prosecutors faced, and its why nobody was ever convicted of murder.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-sicknick-capitol-riot-die... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick#Misinf...

[jhp123]

You don't seem to understand why the "very fine people" remark was unacceptable to many of us. Like I said, he was excusing political violence. A woman had been murdered by neo-Nazis and he went out of his way to minimize, justify and excuse the act, while condemning imaginary "alt-left" violence at the same event.

On the topic of Sicknick, I don't find it credible that he died coincidentally the day after being assaulted. The timing alone is strong evidence that the two are related.

Even if it was "merely" an assault on a police officer, it's political violence and it's acceptable to every Republican voter. You opened this door.

[zahlman]

> You don't seem to understand why the "very fine people" remark was unacceptable to many of us. Like I said, he was excusing political violence.

No, he was not. That is not what the words meant in context, and he also said many other things in the same speech that directly contradict you.

> it's political violence and it's acceptable to every Republican voter.

This does not follow, and making assertions like this is entirely outside of civil discussion.

[TheFreim]

> Like I said, he was excusing political violence. A woman had been murdered by neo-Nazis and he went out of his way to minimize, justify and excuse the act, while condemning imaginary "alt-left" violence at the same event.

I again strongly encourage you to go watch the video or read the transcript since it directly contradicts what you are continuing to claim. Trump explicitly said that that the neo-Nazis should be "condemned totally." A total condemnation is exactly the opposite of your claim that he was "excusing" or trying to "minimize" the events. I will also note that I find it quite odd that you claim to be upset about Trump allegedly downplaying violence, but then go on to downplay and minimize left-wing extremist violence. I believe that all political violence should be condemned, its unfortunate that you appear to believe otherwise.

> I don't find it credible that he died coincidentally the day after being assaulted.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here, I don't find it likely that I will be convinced to ignore the medical expert who examined the case and the corresponding documentary evidence that points against the idea that Sicknick was killed.

[jhp123]

Please take a look at the transcript in its entirety. Shortly after the part where he says Nazis should be condemned, he goes on to say that there are "fine people on both sides", undercutting his earlier claim.

[zahlman]

I and the other poster looked at the transcript in its entirety, and called upon you to do so as well.

The argument being used to rebut you depends on understanding the transcript in its entirety. Yours depends on taking a few words out of context and misrepresenting the party to whom they refer.

[shadowgovt]

The thing about Trump's speech pattern is that he says word-salads. In both the transcript and the video of the speech, you can see him basically trying to make both points at the same time (as he often does when he's scrambling to figure out what to say). The most charitable steel-man interpretation I can give of his words is

- the specific people who killed a protestor are condemnable

- people were engaging in passionate political demonstration for the issue they were invested in before the killing occurred. They were Americans participating in the American tradition of protest and demonstration, the "fine people" on both sides

Problem is, that second point clashes hard with the footage of the event that showed white-shirted white men carrying tiki torches chanting "blood and soil." Most charitably, Trump wasn't talking about those folks; he was talking about some more moderate, reasonable pro-Lee-statue protestors who were there before the tiki torch mob showed up.

I think people's skepticism that such a moderate protest group actually exists varies, and if your skepticism is dialed to 100%, it's real easy to conclude Trump meant the "Jews will not replace us" crowd were the "fine people" because they don't see any other people he could be talking about.