The recent controversy surrounding the events in Charlottesville illustrate a problem the media are having with President Trump.  Supporters of the president will remain with him under almost any circumstance.  His opponents will oppose him regardless of what he says.  If he says "good morning," they will manage to find some nefarious motive in his statement.  There are a large number of people in the middle who can be swayed either way.  If they get their information exclusively from the establishment media, they will tend to be critical of the president.  The establishment media are almost universally opposed to Trump.

The problem for the media is that an increasing number of people are getting their information from the internet.  The internet contains a wide spectrum of information.  Much of it is nonsense.  However, it also contains 100% accurate information.  If people want to know what the president actually said during his press conference, they can read the transcript.  Fair-minded people can determine for themselves if the president's remarks have been distorted.

Much of the criticism of the president revolved around his condemnation of both sides in the violence in Charlottesville.  Trump was asked, "Is the Alt-Left as bad as white supremacy?"  He responded, "You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent."  He continued, "You had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent."

To the media, this position is inexcusable.  The progressive narrative is that the Antifa are against hate and are therefore the good guys.  This narrative has been accepted by Trump's Republican opponents.  Sen. John McCain claimed, "There's no moral equivalency between racists and Americans standing up to defy hate and bigotry.  The president of the United States should say so."  Mitt Romney tweeted, "No, not the same.  One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi.  The other opposes racism and bigotry.  Morally different universes."  Sen. Lindsey Graham said, "Through his statements yesterday, President Trump took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally and people like [Heather] Heyer."

Are the organizations attacking the alt-right respectable groups worthy of support by Republican senators?  These protesters frequently wear masks to conceal their identity.  They often use symbols of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong as fashion statements. They frequently carry flags from an ideology responsible for the deaths of perhaps 100 million people.  They routinely riot at G20 summits, causing extensive property damage.  Perhaps the two groups are not morally equivalent.  It may be that the "Antifa" are more destructive than the alt-right groups.

Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned the Alt-Right groups during his press conferences: "I've condemned neo-Nazis.  Neo-Nazis and the white nationalists ... should be condemned totally.  It looked like they had some rough, bad people – neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them."  The president mentioned those who attended the protest who were not extremists but attended because they oppose the removal of historic monuments.  He remarked, "You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.  Okay?  And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."  Is this sentence unclear?  He stated, "Other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists."  Yet a reporter immediately asked, "Sir, I just didn't understand what you were saying.  You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?  I just don't understand what you were saying."  This question is an indication of a lack of understanding on the part of the press.  Even more incomprehensible was Lindsey Graham's comment that the president equated the neo-Nazis with Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed during the protest.  Trump specifically said, "I hear she was a fine – really, actually, an incredible young woman."

The other inexcusable statement by the president was his claim that "[y]ou're changing history.  You're changing culture."  He said, "So this week, it's Robert E. Lee.  I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.  I wonder, is it George Washington next week?  And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?  You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"  When it was pointed out that "George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same," he responded that they were both slave owners.  The reporter's claim that Lee and Washington were not the same implied that after Lee, the protests would end.  However, there have been news reports that there are calls for the removal of both Washington and Jefferson monuments. 

If all the demands of the Antifa were granted and every last vestige of the Confederacy were removed, would they all return to their homes and resume their peaceful lives?  Everyone knows they would create a new list of demands.  Confederate monuments are just a tool they are using to assert power.  Republican politicians are using them to attack the president.  They are either extremely cynical or incredibly ignorant.  Conservatives need to emphasize the moral depravity of Antifa and questions those politicians' motives. 

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in international relations from St. Mary's University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.