The New Yorker and Economist’s new covers blast Trump’s white supremacist pandering

Here are the latest covers of three major news magazines. Notice any similarities?

They’re all references to the violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and how President Donald Trump reacted to them — by effectively pandering to white supremacists.

In a speech after police shut down the demonstrations, Trump blamed “many sides” for the chaos, even though only one side — white supremacists — were responsible for the death of a counterprotester after a Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd.

On Monday, that briefly appeared to change when Trump read a statement that condemned “this weekend’s racist violence,” said that “racism is evil,” and called out the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists in particular.

But the new tone, read from a teleprompter and seemingly insincere, lasted for a day. On Tuesday, Trump again shifted back to his “many sides” rhetoric and even excused the white supremacist protests.

“I think there is blame … on both sides,” he told reporters. “I have no doubt about it. You don’t have a doubt about it either. If you reported it accurately, you would say that.”

Trump also argued, “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.”

White supremacists have celebrated Trump’s message here. White nationalist Richard Spencer praised Trump “for speaking the truth.” And former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke tweeted, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”

The magazine covers reflect this chain of events: After America’s first black president, we now have a president whom literal white supremacists are praising.

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