Charlottesville: 'Very Fine People on Both Sides'

The Unite the Right Rally

On August 11-12, 2017, hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the Ku Klux Klan gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite the Right” rally, ostensibly organized to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. On the night of August 11, torch-bearing marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” — a slogan borrowed from Nazi Germany — as they marched through the University of Virginia campus.

The following day, violent clashes erupted between the white supremacists and counter-protesters. The situation turned deadly when James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old white supremacist from Ohio, deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Fields was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Trump’s Response

Trump’s initial statement on the day of the attack blamed hatred and violence “on many sides, on many sides” — a formulation that notably avoided condemning white supremacists by name. Under intense bipartisan pressure, he delivered a more pointed condemnation of racist groups two days later, on August 14. But on August 15, during an impromptu press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower, he reversed course again and made the comments that would define the episode.

“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” Trump said, referring to the white supremacists and counter-protesters. He added: “You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue.” He also asked, “What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right?”

The Reaction

The remarks drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. Republican leaders including Senators John McCain and Marco Rubio stated unequivocally that there was no moral equivalence between white supremacists and those who opposed them. Business leaders abandoned Trump’s advisory councils en masse, forcing their dissolution. Former President Barack Obama responded with a tweet quoting Nelson Mandela about people learning to hate, which became the most-liked tweet in history at that time.

White supremacist leaders, meanwhile, celebrated Trump’s remarks. Former KKK leader David Duke tweeted, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth.” The Daily Stormer, a prominent neo-Nazi website, praised Trump’s comments as a victory.

A Defining Moment

Charlottesville became one of the defining episodes of the Trump presidency and a recurring reference point in American politics. Joe Biden would later cite the “very fine people” remark as the moment that convinced him to run for president in 2020. The incident laid bare a pattern that would recur throughout Trump’s time in office: a persistent reluctance to condemn white supremacy unequivocally, paired with a willingness to create false equivalences between racist extremists and those who opposed them.