Poor White Nationalists are just misunderstood people with valid grievances who don't deserve us being so mean to them, says Pete Hegseth of Fox News. Their whole "master race" thing is just because they are scared. Hating Jews and blacks and Muslims and anyone of non-Aryan lineage is not a big deal. Threats of violence? No big deal. Running people over with cars and beating people with bats while screaming "Ni**er"? They are expressing themselves!
Ok, I exaggerated a bit, but you get the idea. Fox is serving as White Nationalist public relations.
PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): I think the president nailed it. He condemned in the strongest possible terms hatred and bigotry on all sides as opposed to immediately picking a side out the gate (Because picking between armed and angry Nazis and protestors who dislike Nazis is a really hard choice, right?). He saluted the police specifically for what they did. That was even before those two officers lost their lives through an accident with the helicopter. And then, this line to me is so important. He said, "We are all Americans first." And you hear the slogan, "America first," but what does that mean if you are America first? It means you’re not a racial identity first. You’re not a class first. You’re not a gender first. You're not a sexual orientation first. You're not another country first. It's not multiculturalism first. It's America first. And if we see ourselves through that lens, then it unites us as opposed to dividing us, which, frankly, the left and others have done for so long by saying, no, I see you as a gender or a race or a class, and the Balkanization creates division. We love our country. We love our god. We love our flag. And we are proud of our country. That to me is a unifying message that people should be drawn to as opposed to criticize.
CLAYTON MORRIS (CO-HOST): Well, and Ivanka Trump took it one step further with a tweet this morning because --
ABBY HUNTSMAN (CO-HOST): Well she, she actually -- the criticism that he was getting was that he did not actually address the white supremacy movement, the white nationalists. To your point, Clayton, she actually tweeted out this morning addressing that directly.
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HEGSETH: Just putting out that [Anti-Facists], though, also ought be called out. Just like the violent aspects of Black Lives Matter ought be called out. (Oh god, here we go with bothsiderism. Did BLM run anyone over with a car?)
MORRIS: Sure.
HEGSETH: You can call that out, and then -- but still also listen, say, on Black Lives Matter, to the grievances of young African-American males in urban cores who feel like they are looked at differently by police. That discussion still should be had. Just like young white men who feel like, “Hey, I'm treated differently in this country than I feel like I should have. I've become a second-class citizen. None of it -- they tell me I have white privilege.” None of that justifies racial preferences or violence at all. But there's always a grievance underneath it that it's worth talking about. And we should never live in such a politically correct culture that we can't at least have a conversation. There's a reason those people were out there. Some of it is outright racism and needs to be condemned. A lot of it, though, is I feel like my country is slipping away and just because I talk about nationalism -- not white nationalism -- doesn't mean I'm talking in code that I'm a racist.
Ok, Pete. So what is the conversation we should have with Nazis? Why they are angry? We know. They hate Jews, Muslims, LGBT, etc. How does he propose we solve that "grievance"? Listen to them rage? They did that already...in World War II where they literally killed 6 million Jews. The United States fought against the Nazis. We won, thank god. Now they are back and we are supposed to listen to their racist views? No. Sorry. They don't get to push their hate on us anymore.
