Free speech is the battleground between Trump and his opponents

Trump defends the neo-Nazis. Trump is a white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan sympathizer. Trump is a racist. Trump, with his comments after the events of Charlottesville, failed to comply with the minimum moral standards that must be followed by the President of the United States. In fact, he’s just a crazy man.

This is the message, spreaded urbi et orbi, by "mainstream media", Obama and Clinton supporters, pundits, conformists, and generic lazy thinkers. But the reality is quite different.

To understand the whole story, we need to put it into its context. And in order to do that, a few premises are necessary.

First premise. Claims of racism/neo-Nazism against Trump are a joke and politically motivated. Trump is not a racist, as his personal, business and family history clearly shows. Of course, liberal media time to time recall that old lawsuit for racial discrimination filed against him for one of his NYC condos; but there was no sentence for that controversy, that was closed with an agreement. On the other hand, it should be remembered that Trump received an award, for example, in 1999, by Reverend Jesse Jackson in person. That his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, husband of his favorite daughter Ivanka, is Jewish. That Ivanka herself converted to Judaism in order to marry Jared. That Trump is totally pro Israel, and a big friend of Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu. The images of Trump's visit to the Western Wall have traveled around the world. Obama, on the contrary, was very careful to stay away from the Western Wall while he was President.

Second premise. The facts actually happened in Charlottesville can be summarized as follows. The city of Charlottesville wants to remove the statue of General Lee, head of the Confederate Army during the American Civil / Secession War. It is a complex and delicate matter, touching wounds never completely healed. A protest demonstration is organized, joined, of course, by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, and other far right-wing groups, looking for publicity. The local authorities deny their authorization. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) files a lawsuit before a federal court against the prohibition. N.B .: ACLU is an organization that has, as its core mission, the defense of constitutional freedoms, and certainly cannot be suspected of being friendly with Trump. ACLU goes to court because it cares about the First Amendment of the US Constitution (topic on which I will return later in this post). The federal court authorizes the demonstration. Leftist militants organize a counter-protest. Without any permit. The police basically stands down, at the orders of a governor and a mayor both members of the Democratic Party, and very hostile to Trump. The two factions inevitably come into contact and clash (violent right-wing activits against violent left-wing activists). In this temporal context, a crazy criminal drives his car into  a crowd, killing a left-wing activist, Heather Heyer.

Until to this point Trump has nothing to do with the whole story. He enters into the picture only because, in crisis situations, everybody in the US looks at the President for guidance. Trump makes a first statement right after the events, saying generic things of good sense, condemning the violent acts committed by both sides.

First “scandal”. Trump’s remarks are criticized as "weak" and "too tolerant". Democrats, main stream media, political conformists, and "traditional" Republicans wanted the usual unilateral standard condemnation of white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, with which they all would have agreed but would have resolved nothing. In other words, a statement in Obama style. For example, right after the death of Michael Brown, an African-American teen ager killed by a white cop, Obama did not hesitate to immediately blame the cop; but his blame was later proved unfounded not only by a local grand jury, but also by Obama’s own Department of Justice.

Trump, on this one as well as many other issues, intends to differentiate himself from Obama, says that wants to evaluate the facts before jumping to conclusions. That is why he, first of all, on Saturday, condemned all the violents, of any side. On Monday, he condemned the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis. On Tuesday he renewed the explicit condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis, but also the condemnation of violent leftist militants.

Hence the chaos. The blame against Trump is to have put "on the same level" neo-Nazis and anti-racists.

But is it true? Absolutely not.

Trump also answered to an explicit question in that regard. Give a look at the video. (I recommend watching it all, especially from 17:16).

In short, the story reflects a well-established cliché: Trump says something, the media and his opponents accuse him of saying the exact opposite.

The clash is powerful, particularly if you consider all the relevant factors in play.

First factor. Racism and the awful heritage of racial segregation are very serious problems in the United States. From the point of view of the federal legislation, they were dealt with only fifty years ago. From a practical, real point of view, the wounds are open, and discriminations and inequalities still exist, a lot. From a political point of view, it is a delicate matter, because up to about sixty years ago, the Southern racists had their own political home in the Democratic Party (yes, the one that later became Obama’s party). Then they emigrated to the Republican party (yes, the party that used to be Lincoln’s party, the President who abolished slavery). In short, both parties have, in this regard, their skeletons in the closet.

Second factor. In the US, the political debate on this subject, like on many others, is strongly ideological. The trend is to force a polarized “dialogue” along predetermined categories. One of these categories is that the minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, etc.) are supposed to vote for the Democratic Party, whereas the white population is supposed to vote for the Republican Party. Anyone who tries to exit from this scheme, or to break it – for example by reasoning in terms of individual rights, rather than in terms of group identity, and focusing on the relaunch of the internal economy in order to solve the problems of marginalized and poor communities (like Trump does) – is instinctively opposed, because it puts into question the fundamental pillars of the current political discourse.

Third factor. In the United States, the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution guarantees ample protection for the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is very broad, much broader than, for example, in Italy, where the marches of neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists, that we see in the United States, are not allowed. The Charlottesville event had been authorized, as I said before, by a federal judge. The radical difference between the United States and Italy (and Europe in general) on this subject has obvious historical roots. Italy and Europe, at one point, all fell into the dark hole of dictatorships. The United States were able to stay immune from totalitarism, and to continue to believe in the principle of the "free market of ideas", i.e. in the free competition of ideas. In other words, in the belief that horrible ideas can be defeated not suppressing them, but putting them in competition with other ideas. The First Amendment, and its legal implications, set the perimeter of the confrontation between Trump and his opponents in the last days. If we do not realize this, we do not understand what is happening, and, more generally, we do not understand the United States.

Fourth factor. In the United States, there is a serious problem of political violence. With Obama at the White House, racial tensions were only partially sublimated in the debate - often harsh, at times violent – on the allegations of brutality and racism moved against the police (Black Lives Matter vs. Blue Lives Matter). After the election of Trump, there have been numerous cases of political violence by so-called "Antifa" (militant "antifascists"). There have been also extremely serious individual episodes of political violence, such as the attempted murder of a Republican Congressman very close to Trump, Steve Scalise. But it must be remembered that also during the Obama presidency a democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, survived an assassination attempt that left her with a sever brain injury (and killed six other people). In short, the problem of political violence, in the US, is serious, very delicate, and must be addressed with sense of responsibility from all sides.

Fifth factor. In this context, the debate on the First Amendment is heated and divisive. Lately, the Left has started to claim the right to suppress the freedom of manifestation of speech by subjects whose ideas are deemed unacceptable, such as neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, etc. In sum, the Left aims to assume the right to exercise, at its own discretion, a sort of "heckler's veto" – that means the possibility to curtail or restrict the speaker’s right, not for reasons of public order (as the technical definition of this legal concept wants), but for purposes – defined by the Left itself – of "democratic and anti-racist vigilance". In practice, the Left wants to make the United States much more similar to Europe, also for reasons of political calculus (to compete in the "free market of ideas" is difficult; it is much easier to compete in a less pluralistic and more conformist environment). Unfortunately, the step to the justification of the use of political violence to “safeguard" minorities considered worthy of protection, is very short.

Here is where Trump comes into play. He bursts in this debate like an alien subject, like something totally extraneous and different. According to Trump, the main role of the President is not to distribute moral judgments or excommunications (like Obama did, instead, in the case of Michael Brown, causing division and resentment), but above all to guarantee law and order, and protect the Constitution. And all its Amendments. Including the First one. The Amendment that, as we have said before, recognizes the right to free speech also to subjects who have horrible ideas. In the conviction that horrible ideas can be defeated not suppressing them, but putting them in competition with other ideas. This is a belief shared not only by Trump, but above all, by the Framers of the Federal Bill of Rights. And there is a reason if the First Amendment is, among all, the first one. Trump is not a man of ideology, but a pragmatic. He is not a racist. Until his successful run against Clinton, Democrats were friends with him and appreciated his donations. More simply, Trump does not believe in the right of the Left to decide which ideas can be expressed, and which ones must be suppressed. He does not believe in the right of the Left to exercise a sort of "heckler's veto" that is not allowed by the US Constitution. Above all, Trump does not believe that the Left is entitled to a moral pass-partout that allows, in addition to the dictatorship of political correctness, also the use of political violence.

Perhaps this is why the reactions to his remarks after Charlottesville have been so virulent. Not only by those who, on the Western side of the Atlantic, are working every day to demolish that almost unique experiment in the human history that is represented – from an institutional point of view – by the United States of America. But also by those who, on the European shore of the Ocean, have never wanted to understand that experiment, or, because of superficiality or malice, are ready to misinterpret it.