Most Democrats believe Biden lie about Trump supposedly praising neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and white supremacists

Biden in his acceptance speech: 

"Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville. Close your eyes, remember what saw on television, and remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists, coming out of fields with lighted torches, veins bulging, spewing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ‘30s. Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. Remember what the President said when asked, he said there were, quote, “very fine people on both sides.” It was a wake-up call for us as a country.  And for me, a call to action.  At that moment I knew I had to run, My father taught us that silence was complicity.  And I could never remain silent or complicit."

59% of Democrats remember it the way Biden does, as do 19% of Republicans and 37% of unaffiliated voters.
49% of Democrats Think Trump Voters Are Racist

A constant theme of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night was that Joe Biden is a decent and honest person. Someone who wants to heal the divisions in the country and bring people together. 

Well, in his acceptance speech at the convention, Biden completely blew up that narrative.

Biden couldn’t help telling whopping lies in accusing President Trump of racism. In recalling the horrors of racists rioting in Charlottesville in 2017, Biden claimed that Trump said that there were “very fine people on both sides,” among both the protesters — which included white supremacists and white nationalists — and the counter-protesters.

We must condemn racists. But what do you make of someone who repeatedly lies that someone else is racist?

Ever since the 2016 campaign, Democrats and the media have asserted that President Trump has failed to distance himself from white nationalists and neo-Nazis. The fact that White House staffers must answer these questions shows how far out of kilter the discussion has gone.

These media depictions are so extreme that they are easily proven false. If Trump “stayed silent” and really “refused to distance himself,” there shouldn’t be any statements. Yet, there are dozens of them.

Instead of taking a few words completely out of context, here is Trump’s statement where he referred to “very fine people.”

TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. . . . I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.  

REPORTER: I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?  

TRUMP: No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly, the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee. . . .

So what exactly is unclear? It’s hard to see how any rational person could think that Trump wasn’t condemning neo-Nazis. Was “very bad people” not strong enough? Should he have said, “very, very bad people”?

Or how about another Trump statement in the aftermath of the riots? “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

In the Missoulian: Bullock Ads Claim Support For The Second Amendment

I have a new piece in the Missoulian newspaper:

For the last couple of weeks, Steve Bullock has bombarded the airwaves with ads claiming that he supports gun ownership. “Bullock took on his own party to defend our Second Amendment rights,” claims one ad, while another features his young son, Cam, saying, “He was by my side when I got my first buck.” Ads over the weekend warned voters not to be fooled on this issue: “Out-of-state secret money groups can lie all they want, the truth is [Bullock] will always keep Montanans safe.”  

Those are just some ads that Bullock has run on gun control. 

But, with an F-rating from the NRA, it is no wonder that Bullock is spending so much money trying to convince Montanans that he shares their values. He just hopes that people will forget about his gun control stances when he ran for president last year.
When Bullock ran for president, he quickly came out in support of a long list of gun control laws: a ban on some semi-automatic guns based on their appearance, Red Flag laws that let judges take away people’s guns without a hearing, higher age limits on gun ownership, and bans on magazines that can hold more than 15 bullets. 

The “assault weapon ban” might fly in California and New York where people don’t know very much about guns, but that isn’t true in Montana. While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call AR-15s “weapons of war,” Montanans understand that the semi-automatic AR-15 merely looks like the M-16 machine gun that was made famous in the Vietnam War. No military in the world uses the AR-15. 

The rest of the piece is available here.