Wiretap: CEOs, military chiefs, GOP pols take turns jabbing Trump over Charlottesville

The question now is who hasn’t dumped, or dumped on, Donald Trump after his comments on the white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville. Five armed services chiefs took to social media to condemn neo-Nazis and racism. CEOs were denouncing racism as an “affront to American values” and were defecting as a group before Trump disbanded two advisory councils. Even Republican politicians were challenging Trump’s comments that those standing against the racists in Charlottesville were equally responsible for the violence.  Via The New York Times.

The road to radicalism in Charlottesville — whether it’s white-supremacist extremism or jihadist extremism, the methods by which they attract and retain followers are strikingly similar. Via The Atlantic.

Trump’s overt racism has put corporate America in a real bind. Of course that doesn’t mean you have to feel sorry for the corporate chiefs, who want lower taxes but aren’t sure they’re worth being aligned so clearly with the president. After Charlottesville, it looks as if some think the cost is too high. Via New York magazine.

Steve Bannon goes all Mooch (without the X-rated language) in a surprising interview with the small liberal magazine, The American Prospect. Now let’s see how long he lasts.

From The National Review, conservatives are playing a dangerous game of footsie with the alt-right. Steve Bannon disavowed them once he made it to the White House, and then the president stepped in.

Thousands marched at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in a rally against racism in violence. Many of the marchers were presumably actually very fine people. Via The Los Angeles Times.

HBO is planning to run a series based on the hypothetical that the Confederacy had won the Civil War. Those who argue that it’s too soon for the series make this point after Charlottesville: The Confederacy still has a great hold on America. Via The New Yorker.

This isn’t the first go-round for Trump, who has been at the center of racially divisive issues for most of his adult life. Via The Washington Post.

Trump lawyer John Dowd circulated an email that equates Robert E. Lee with George Washington and the Civil War with the American Revolution. Via The New York Times.

At his news conference Tuesday, Trump said the way to improve race relations in America has less to do with the divisive issues of racial justice than it does for the economy to grow more jobs. History says he’s wrong. Via Vox.

When Trump gets angry, as he did Tuesday, the next thing you know, he’s on a rampage — this time at the news conference at which he insisted there were “very fine people” on the side of the white supremacists. Via Politico.

Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr: Creative Commons. 
He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow.