The true nature of Trumpism can no longer be denied

There is a strain of wickedness so contagious that it infects every pore of the places it touches. It can be found in the failed human beings who snatch at glory by the mass slaughter of children; they have changed forever the towns of Dunblane, Newton and Columbine. New York and Paris have emerged from the violent fantasies of terrorists but Utøya, Enniskillen and Ma’alot likely never will. Charlottesville joins the grim roster of cities that stand as metonyms for racial hatred and intolerance. The Virginian municipality has been here before — it was ground zero of the Stanley Plan — but it is the arresting display, in 2017, of white supremacism that will forever bracket it with Selma and Birmingham.

Evil can sometimes be terribly useful. The torchlit procession of angry, paranoid adolescent men was an unmistakeable echo of the overgrown teenager in the Oval Office. The tone and character of Trumpism can no longer be denied.