Why does he refuse to condemn them?

[*PhilHos*]

(09-30-2020, 02:37 PM)Dill Wrote: You cut off the lead in . . .

Reporter: "The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest --"

Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."  https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/

How much "twisting" is really required here, for anyone who can follow pronoun reference? And why the "both sidesism", the need to say "bad people on the other side as well"?  The best you can get from this is that Trump muddled his grammar/thinking, confused or conflated groups. And when he was supposed to be clarifying a previous unclarity. Racism or incompetence?

Leading back to my point. If you are a national leader with this problem, you can fix it if you really want to. Make sure that in the next interview or speech, and during the coming election you have a definitive statement, backed by a policy.

"I denounce white supremacy without reserve. It has no place American and not in my administration. You support white supremacy in my administration and 'YOU'RE FIRED'."  Doubtful anyone could spin that against him--unless he controverted his words by hiring alt-righters as part of hid White House staff.

But that's not Trump's situation. Last night he needed help from Biden and Wallace to get a weak denunciation.

If Wallace asked Trump to denounce "the Left," would Trump have asked "Ok what do you want me to say? Name some groups? ANTIFA stand back and stand by!"

I agree that Trump makes things more difficult for himself by not just unequivocally stating his denouncements but, again, he DID clearly state he wasn't talking about racists/neoNazis/white supremacists when he said there were "fine people" on both sides.