Absolutely Maggie. The issue is this...
Is it because he said there was violence on both sides?
No.
It's that he equated the bigotry of both sides as the same and equally worthy of condemnation. It's that he treated the hatred and bigotry of Nazi's and the KKK, organizations build and founded upon the notion that entire races are inferior and meant for enslavement and/or death, with Black Lives Matters and Antifa...groups that may engage or even encourage violence, that may have extremists that hold hateful views, but who are no where on the same scale as the wide scale systematic hatred based purely on something as fundamental as the color of ones skin, the religion that one has, or the genetics that one carried.
If he had ONLY spoken of the violence, likely there would have been some complaints; after all, the worst instance of violence was perpetrated by only one side of the incident. However, the issue is his statement did
not speak
only of the violence.
"this egregious display of
hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides"
You, and others Maggie, keep talking about how people are upset that Trump was simply condemning violence on both sides; but he didn't. That's not what he said. He didn't simply speak of the violence on many sides. He spoke and condemned, equally condemned, the hatred and specifically the
bigotry on many sides. And no matter how one views BLM or even ANTFIA, I've yet to hear a reasonable and rationale explanation on how in the world the hatred and bigotry that one can assign to either of them even approaches that of a group like the Nazi's or the KKK.
Were all the protesters Nazi's or the KKK or White Supremacists? No. And not all the counter protesters were Antifa or BLM or other such groups. Ultimately, both sides are clearly referring to the more extreme elements making up the contingents on each side.
