How The Local Politicians Responded To The White Supremacists UPDATE - ANOTHER UPDATE

As the man said "All politics is local," it might be a good idea to see how some local elected officia

ls reacted to the violence of this weekend in Charlottesville, specifically whether they denounce or even mention the white supremacists at the heart of it.

First the Governor. In a series of tweets, he got it right. Including this:

Violence and racism have no place in America. I join @GovernorVA and condemn the hatred and bigotry of these white supremacists.

— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) August 12, 2017

Then Senator Casey:

Those marching to promote "white nationalism" are promoting a blatantly racist ideology.

— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) August 12, 2017

And:

Our nation must stand together and condemn this racism and those who promote it.

— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) August 12, 2017

And now Senator Toomey:

The racism, hate and violence seen in #Charlottesville are vile and unacceptable.

— Senator Pat Toomey (@SenToomey) August 12, 2017

Sadly, you'll note that he fails to take that last big step to mention "white supremacy" or "Nazis" or anything more specific than "racism, hate and violence" in his tweet. I mean it's great to see racism as vile, but just as I can imagine the alt.right folks in Pennsylvania concluding that those opposing them are "the real racists," I can imagine a lot of them actually agreeing with Toomey's tweet. At the very least, a clarification is in order, doncha think?

Representative Tim Murphy does the job without explicitly calling out the white supremacists or Nazis by name:

Saturday's violence in Charlottesville was an exhibition of racist hate masquerading as political dissent. There is no "other side" to the debate over racial equality and common decency. The racist extremists who sought and invited this violence should be driven from all venues of public life. Hate is hate, and there is no antidote for it but universal rejection.

His "other side" is probably a reference to this tweet from former Vice President Joe Biden:

There is only one side. #charlottesville

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 12, 2017

Which is itself a repudiation of Donald Trump's offensive "On many sides." moral equivalence. And in doing so Murphy does in fact, though in a round about way, denounce those who stand against racial equality (that is to say, those promoting white supremacy).

Representative Mike Doyle's response was short and to the point, while not specifically denouncing the white supremacists at the center of the protests:

I condemn the hate, bigotry, and racism on display in #Charlottesville. It has no place in this country.

— Mike Doyle (@USRepMikeDoyle) August 12, 2017

This is almost exactly Pat Toomey's reaction. However, as I can't imagine very many alt.right folks among Doyle's constituency (or indeed looking at Doyle's twitter feed for political reinforcement), the context is different. Still, perhaps a clarification might be in order.

Take a look, for example, at what Senator Lindsey Graham had to say this weekend:

“[Donald Trump] missed an opportunity to be very explicit here,” said Graham on Fox News Sunday. “These groups seem to believe they have a friend in Donald Trump in the White House. I don’t know why they believe that, but they don’t see me as a friend in the Senate and I would urge the president to dissuade these groups that he’s their friend.”

Dissuade these groups that they are your friends. They're white supremacists, they're Nazis and they should be re-fringed to political impotence.

UPDATE: Senator Toomey just posted this on Facebook:

I am disgusted by white nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis and believe the racism and hate spewed by these groups have no place in our society.

SECOND UPDATE: Representative Mike Doyle updated his Facebook page with this: