OPINION | Tomi Lahren: The left politicizes tragedy — as usual

Over the weekend, white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to sow seeds of hate and racial discord. With Nazi flags and swastikas in hand, white protestors espoused their hateful, un-American ideology for all to hear, exposing the worst of America while our brave police officers — America’s finest — tried to keep the peace.

The actions of one mentally unstable individual led to the death of a counter-protester, with many more injured by his madness; while two officers died when their helicopter — monitoring the troubles below — crashed (in what appears to have been a tragic accident).

{mosads}While most Americans mourn the loss of Lt. H. Jay Cullen, Trooper Berke M. M. Bates, and Heather Heyer, there are those on the Left leveraging this unspeakable tragedy for political gain.

Since Saturday, the liberal media has spent more time criticizing President Trump’s words than the perpetrators of the deadly violence. One CNN headline accused the president of staying “staying strangely silent on white supremacists.”

Another attacked his “incredibly unpresidential statement on Charlottesville,” in which he “condemn[ed] in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence” that same afternoon. Yes, he did condemn the violence — swiftly and strongly. But the truth didn’t stop The New York Times and others from criticizing President Trump’s “reluctance to condemn white supremacists.”

The left-wing Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights spent its time condemning the president’s supposed “failure of leadership.” Other liberal groups claimed the Trump administration sends the “silent message to extremists to continue their march of terror.”

How the White House does so remains unclear. Speaking in Colombia on Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence put it as clear as can be, “We have no tolerance for hate and violence, white supremacists or neo-Nazis or the KKK.”

On Monday, President Trump issued another strong statement, declaring “racism is evil” and describing white supremacists as “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” The Justice Department has already opened a federal hate crime investigation to protect Americans against what it calls “racism and bigotry.”

Apparently, that’s not enough for the snowflakes melting in President Trump’s wake. By politicizing Charlottesville, they’re sticking to the modus operandi of the Democratic Party, which exploited Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, and countless tragedies to promote the Left’s anti-gun, and now Anti-Trump, agenda.

They’re also perpetuating the identity politics that have come to define the emerging alt-Left. The same phony identity politics that failed Hillary Clinton and sank her election attempt. Protestors at President Trump’s historic inauguration sowed similar seeds of destruction when they smashed storefront windows and firebombed cars in the nation’s capital. Antifa protesters in California use violence on college campuses to shut down free speech.

Where was the mainstream media? Were Democrats pressed to condemn the so-called “anti-fascists?” A recent Wall Street Journal editorial put it best, “The extremists were on the right in Charlottesville, but there have been examples on the Left in Berkeley, Oakland, and numerous college campuses. When Democratic politicians can’t even say ‘all lives matter’ without being denounced as bigots, American politics has a problem.”

As President Trump has stated time and time again, the White House condemns extremism in all its forms — from radical Islamic terror — a phrase unutterable by the left that now tears its hair out parsing the president’s words — to white supremacy.

And as he strives to unify us and make America great again, the president will continue to warn the American people about those who would divide us for political purposes.

In the end, the politicization of Charlottesville hurts this weekend’s victims the most. Their attackers — part of a larger and (truly) deplorable movement — are now overshadowed by the Left’s laundry list of anti-Trump soundbites and the liberal media’s obsession with covering them. Now is the time to follow President Trump’s lead and honor the fallen, not play identity politics at their funerals.

Tomi Lahren is senior adviser for Great America Alliance.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.