President Donald Trump has tried to unravel the legacy of his predecessor at every turn, but his "many sides" argument about Charlottesville links him to Barack Obama in a specific way, writes Jason Riley, a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
"Both men, however, share a fondness for the identity politics that continue to poison U.S. race relations," Riley wrote in the WSJ.
Riley cites Obama's nod to racial inequality when condemning the murder of five Dallas police officers last year and the 2015 riots that tore apart Baltimore.
Likewise, Trump failed to "denounce despicable behavior forcefully" Saturday and again Tuesday, asserting that the alt-left was just as responsible for the fatal demonstrations in Virginia over the weekend.
"Both presidents were less interested in moral clarity than in placating fringe groups out of political expediency. The difference is that Mr. Obama's caucus mostly indulged his racial innuendo, while Mr. Trump's called him on it," Riley writes.
Trump's not responsible for the racial divisions in the country, Riley writes; race relations declined sharply during Obama's tenure.
But Trump's not inclined to do much about those divisions either, Riley writes.
"It would be unfair to blame Mr. Trump for racial divisions, but it is fair to say he has successfully exploited them and taken little interest in trying to narrow them," Riley wrote. "Maybe the president is convinced, like many of his liberal opponents, that the alt-right carried him to victory. His behavior so far certainly suggests at much."
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