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From ‘You Will Not Replace Us’ to ‘Send Her Back’: How Trump Brought the Spirit of the Charlottesville Rally to His Campaign Stage

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He didn’t wince, he didn’t cringe, he didn’t say “stop.” He soaked it in.

When the crowd at President Donald Trump’s Wednesday campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, began chanting “send her back” about one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, he paused for 13 seconds and let the words hang in the air.

It should have been a crisis for him and his campaign, but it wasn’t. The moment channeled the spirit of another event that really was regarded as major upheaval in his presidency: the 2017 white supremacist march in Charlottesville, North Carolina. When Trump first gave tepid and inconsistent remarks about the event and later defended the “very fine people” who he believed were among the bigoted marchers, the White House recognized the president’s peril and a top adviser reportedly drafted a resignation letter in anguish.

The Charlottesville marchers cheered “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us,” endorsing pernicious conspiracy theories about the supposed dangers of migrants and the people who welcome them. Those same theories inspired the slaughters in a Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque and at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.

And on Wednesday, Trump inspired the related sentiment in his followers when he attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who came to the United States as a child refugee from Somalia.

“Send her back! Send her back!” they cheered.

As a member of Congress, Omar has real, if limited, power. They don’t want her to replace them.

She criticized and disagreed with the president, so she must be forcibly removed from the country, the crowd decided. She has scary, different ideas — even if she promotes them in exactly the way advocates of “assimilation” would demand. She was educated, adapted to American culture, entered herself into the political discourse, convinced voters to support her, and won a seat in Congress. Some say she’s been too critical of Israel, and argued her language is insufficiently sensitive about anti-Semitic tropes. But she criticizes Saudia Arabia, and she criticizes Hamas, too. She promotes nonviolent solutions to problems.

But Trump targeted her, singled her out as foreign and unwanted, so she became the enemy. And in his eyes, despite her American citizenship, despite her duly won election, she doesn’t belong in Congress and she doesn’t belong here.

Go back,” he said.

“You will not replace us,” the Charlottesville Nazis cheered.

It seemed “send her back” may have been a step too far, for a little bit. Trump lied Thursday, saying he tried to stop the chant. He said he was “not happy” about the crowd’s words.

But by Friday, he changed his mind again. What he is really “unhappy with” is Omar, he said. “Those are incredible patriots,” he said of the crowd.

“Very fine people,” he might have said.

 

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'VERY FINE PEOPLE'

Trump-Appointed State Dept. Aide With Top Secret Clearance Beat Officers With Riot Shield At Jan. 6 Insurrection: Report

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A Trump-appointed State Dept. aide allegedly beat officers at the U.S. Capitol with a stolen riot shield, used it to force open a Capitol Hill door, verbally engaged with police, and led insurrection rioters into the building, shouting, “We need fresh people, need fresh people.”

These new details come from The Washington Post, after Politico Thursday night broke the news that the State Dept. aide, Federico Klein, appointed by Trump in 2017 after working on the Trump campaign, was arrested by the FBI in connection with the deadly January 6 insurrection.

The New York Times adds Klein was arrested on charges “including unlawful entry, violent and disorderly conduct, obstructing Congress and law enforcement, and assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon.”

Klein was “seen in video footage and other images dressed in a red ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, slacks and a dress shirt as he tries to break past a line of Metropolitan Police officers in a tunnel near the west terrace, according to the [court] document.”

Klein, 42, previously worked as a researcher for the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, according to Politico. That group’s  president, a close informal religious advisor to President Donald Trump, was appointed to the the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He served as chairman and later vice chair.

“Klein was still employed at the State Department as a staff assistant on Jan. 6 when he joined a mob in a tunnel leading into the U.S. Capitol, the FBI said,” The Washington Post reports. “Then he allegedly ‘physically and verbally engaged with the officers holding the line’ at the building’s entrance, according to the complaint. After ignoring officers’ orders to move back, he assaulted officers with a riot shield that had been stolen from police, the complaint said, and then used the shield to wedge open a door into the Capitol.”

Klein resigned from the U.S. State Dept. on January 19.

EARLIER: Arrested: Trump State Dept. Appointee, a Former Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group Employee, in Connection With Capitol Riot

 

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‘I’m Not Racist’ Says Arkansas Sheriff Who Used N-Word 9 Times Because Girlfriend Spoke to a Black Guy

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Arkansas County Sheriff Todd Wright

Arkansas County Sheriff Todd Wright has resigned after the circulation of a five-minute audio recording in which he called a Black employee at a local Piggly Wiggly grocery store a “f*cking Black-ass [n-word]” and accused a female friend of his of being an “[n-word] lover” just for talking to him.

Wright seemed to find it personally humiliating that his girlfriend would dare talk to a Black man in his presence and worried what others would think of him if they saw it occurring.

Despite using the n-word nine times in the recording, Wright has said that he’s not racist, much like Tom Eckerle, the former Michigan county road commissioner who repeatedly used the n-word to describe Black Lives Matter protesters.

Wright initially refused to resign, stating on Facebook, “To all I have offended or hurt, I send my sincere apologies and will pray for my enemies.” However, he agreed to resign after a unanimous vote by court leaders. Before offering his resignation, he cried, said that he’s not racist, and added that his words came out during a “heated moment.”

The court agreed to pay him a month more in salary so he could start looking for a new job. Another officer will take over Wright’s duties during his final month, overseeing a county which is 25 percent Black.

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Kenosha ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Gunman Kyle Rittenhouse Arrested for Murder After Cops Let Him Flee Out of State

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An Illinois teenager has been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a demonstrator in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, was charged Wednesday with first-degree intentional homicide in a shooting late Tuesday during a clash between protesters of police brutality and right-wing militia group members.

The militia members had gathered to protect a gas station from looters and vandals, and video shows police offer Rittenhouse water shortly before the shooting and thank him for being there.

Another video shows Rittenhouse open fire with a rifle after he fell to the ground and then calmly walk toward police vehicles with his hands raised in surrender. Other people can be heard yelling that he had shot someone.

However, no officers are seen getting out of the vehicles, which continue advancing toward protesters, to apprehend Rittenhouse — who then fled the state and was considered a fugitive.

He was arrested later Wednesday back in his hometown.  He is reportedly being held in the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center near Vernon Hills awaiting an extradition hearing.

According to The Daily Beast, Rittenhouse’s Facebook page “included numerous photos with Blue Lives Matter-style pro-police slogans and imagery, as well as of an Armalite rifle similar to the one he appears to have been photographed carrying in Kenosha.”

 

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