Trump and White Supremacy

Hector Guthrie
4 min readAug 17, 2023

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Photo by Bruno Figueiredo on Unsplash

“Trump refuses to condemn white supremacy” — where have I heard that narrative before? I’m going to throw a red challenge flag on the play.

“After review of the play, the media misled the public, and there was no use of brain cells during the assessment; replay the down.”

During a debate president Trump told the proud boys to “stand back and stand by,” why? Because that is what Chris Wallace asked him to do. Go back and listen to the question. Chris Wallace asks Trump to denounce white supremacy and right-wing militias and to tell them to “stand down” and let police do their jobs to restore order in cities (run by Democrats and infiltrated by violent left wing groups such as Antifa). Chris Wallace asked him to tell them to stand down.

Now this question is not very good for several reasons. First, it uses the conjunction “and” to link white supremacists and right-wing militias as the same. They are not. Right-wing militias are not necessarily white supremacists groups. They are mutually exclusive but can overlap as almost anything can. Second, this question isn’t clear if both white supremacy and right-wing militias need to be both condemned and told to stand down, or if white supremacy needs to be condemned and militias need to be told to stand down. Wallace’s phrasing is sloppy and the question is not very clear.

Wallace starts with a conditional “are you willing” to which Trump responds with “sure, I’m willing to do that” which is a positive response meaning “yes I will” but then says (paraphrasing) “why are we talking about them because they aren’t the ones burning buildings, shooting police and occupying city blocks (and creating the most dangerous “country” by murders per capita as was the case with CHAZ/CHOP).” It wasn’t white supremacists roaming the streets and looting stores, destroying property and saying “insurance will pay for it”. That’s all true.

It is a valid response, it’s like saying back in 1930’s “President Roosevelt, will you condemn the Mongolian hoards invading Europe?” And he replies, “sure, but I think fascism is the current rising problem in Europe, not the historic Mongolian hoards.”

Then there is a bunch of talking over each other, and finally Trump asks for a name because he is confused. Joe Biden and maybe Chris Wallace give the name Proud Boys. No one really knows who they are unless you’re up to date on culture wars in America. President Trump stated as much the next day that he didn’t know much about them.

Because Trump is ever so precise with his words (sarcasm), he misstated “stand down” and instead tells them to “stand back and stand by.” He said this because that is what Chris Wallace asked him to do, at least in part. And President Trump tried to do that. If you listen closely, you can tell that Trump is trying to find the phrase “stand down” but doesn’t find it and instead says “stand back”, and realizing this isn’t correct, tries again with “stand by.”

The other part was to condemn white supremacy, and President Trump did that, many times. If this is news to you, or you scoffed at that last part, then congratulations, you’re still drinking the media’s cool-aide.

Check out any of these video compilations of President Trump condemning all those things you think he never condemned: “President Trump Condemning White Supremacy Compilation,” or “Trump disavowing David Duke and KKK from 1991 to 2016,” or “38 Times President Trump Has Condemned Racism and White Supremacy.” Truthfully, by the raw numbers, President Trump has probably condemned white supremacy more than any other president simply because he is asked more than any president. And yet the media still pretends it is a question he refuses to answer. So if this is news to you, should you continue to trust your news source?

In any case, the proud boys are not a white supremacist group. They are right-wing, but not really a militia; they are counter protestors to Antifa. Some of them are thugs; but they aren’t white supremacists. Their leader is Enrique Tarrio (a very white name huh), the photo below is a picture of this man. As you can see that he is mixed race black and Cuban. If the proud boys are white supremacists I want you to make the case here and now why this mixed race black man is leading a white supremacist group.

Some left-wing conspiracy theorist believe he is a white supremacists leading a white supremacy group.

Trump has denounced white supremacy many times, he didn’t fail to do it during the debate. As shown, when he asked for a specific group neither Wallace or Biden named a white supremacist group. He misstated what Chris Wallace asked him to say (“stand by” and “stand back” compared to “stand down”). He identified that it wasn’t right wingers out there destroying things (remember Joe Biden excuses left-wing violent groups as an “idea”).

Most people already have made up their mind on the matter. Probably because the majority of the media is committed to gaslighting you into believing something. But you saw the videos for yourself, and you can see Mr. Torrio for yourself. The question is, should you believe the gaslighting media, or your very eyes and ears? Save the white supremacy slander for those who actually deserve it, and leave everyone else alone.

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Hector Guthrie
Hector Guthrie

Written by Hector Guthrie

I am a thinker and a writer. As a religious minority, a gender minority, a racial minority, and a political minority, I think I have something to say.

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