As Trump faces Charlottesville reckoning, Joe Biden shows why America must call out extremists of all shades

Niall Ferguson says the Charlottesville backlash shows the worm has turned against Trump, but Joe Biden’s ‘there’s only one side’ tweet highlights how similar censure is rare when violence is perpetrated by anti-fascists or Islamists

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Crowds gather at an impromptu memorial where a van crashed into pedestrians a few days before, at Las Ramblas in Barcelona on August 20. Islamic State jihadists have claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:45pm, 21 Aug 2017Updated: 7:14am, 17 Oct 2020

Last week was the week the proverbial worm turned. It was the week Donald Trump finally went too far, for all those for whom he had not previously gone too far. People resigned from the president’s various consultative committees so fast that Trump had to scrap them. Internet companies hitherto committed to free expression decided that enough was enough. And numerous Republican politicians stepped forward to denounce the man their party put in the White House, most memorably the former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The line Trump had crossed was rhetorical. He had failed to denounce with sufficient speed, conviction and clarity the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose rally in Charlottesville led to the death of a young woman.

‘No good Nazis’: James Murdoch pens scathing memo to Fox staff over Charlottesville and Trump

Trump did belatedly say what needed to be said on Monday. “Racism is evil,” he declared, “and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups.” However, before and after that statement, he also said that there had been violence “on many sides”. On Tuesday morning, Trump insisted there was “blame on both sides” (as well as “very fine people on both sides”) and that some “alt-left” groups had been “very, very violent” on the streets of Charlottesville. “They came charging with clubs,” he alleged.

“There is only one side,” tweeted the former vice-president, Joe Biden, in response.

Watch: ‘Alt-left came charging with clubs in their hands’

I yield to no one in my contempt for fascists and racists. I have spent much of my career as a historian trying to fathom why bogus theories of racial difference became so widely and fanatically believed that millions could be murdered in the name of racial “purity”. Those who marched in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” and waving swastika flags are indeed beneath contempt.