After Charlottesville, time to censure President Trump

Several prominent Republicans took to Twitter on Wednesday to denounce hatred and bigotry in the wake of President Trump's shocking equivocations about the white-supremacist mayhem in Charlottesville, Va. That's all well and good. But the curse of Twitter is its driveby nature, allowing leaders to dip their toes in controversy without really getting wet. 

Expressing disapproval in 140 characters or fewer is insufficient when the president angrily asserts that there were some "very fine people" among the bigots waving Confederate battle flags and swastika banners; when torch-bearing marchers chanted "Jews will not replace us"; and when police said one Nazi sympathizer rammed a sports car into a crowd, killing an innocent counterprotester. The victim, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was remembered Wednesday at a heartbreaking memorial service.

When these things happen in the United States, and the president blames "both sides," more formal condemnation is necessary. This is a moment of reckoning for members of the Party of Lincoln: Do they want to stand up for American values, or do they want to keep enabling a president whose understanding of right and wrong has slipped dangerously off the rails?

If congressional Republicans choose the former — and history will be watching — they should join together with Democrats to censure Trump. 

Censure is not impeachment. Whether that's appropriate will likely depend on the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But censure would constitute a forceful way of rebuking the White House and condemning the vile views of a bigoted fringe, even as those people's right to free speech and peaceful protest is protected under the First Amendment.

Censure of a president would not be new, although many efforts in recent history have failed. A distant exception was a Senate censure of President Andrew Jackson in 1834, in a dispute over the continued existence of the federal banking system. 

OPPOSING VIEW:‘A voice for unity and calm’

Trump's heated exchange Tuesday with reporters in the Trump Tower lobby, where he drew moral equivalence between fascist and anti-fascist demonstrators, provided ample reason for a dressing down. Anyone viewing Vice News footage of the white supremacists would be hard-pressed to spot "very fine people" in their midst. Any such people surely would have disassociated themselves from the hate-mongers in a New York minute.

What could have motivated Trump's remarks, which further emboldened the racists and totally undermined a forceful condemnation of them that the president had read just a day earlier?

Maybe amid declining approval ratings, he's desperate to cling to even this extreme part of his political base, regardless of the bile they spew. Maybe his narcissism prevents him from criticizing those who admire him. Or maybe, in petulant "you're not the boss of me" fashion, he was acting out against aides trying to tell him what to do.

Regardless of motive, what matters is that other elected officials uphold American values. The political chasm between Democrats and Republicans may be wider than ever. But when it comes to ideologies of hate and racism, the nation's leaders need to speak forcefully with one voice.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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