Clive Crook, Columnist

How Democrats Can Help Trump Fail

They'll need to restrain some of their less productive political instincts.

August 21, 2017 at 7:00 AM UTC

Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering economics. Previously, he was deputy editor of the Economist and chief Washington commentator for the Financial Times.

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It's been clear for a long time that Donald Trump is unfit to be president, but there are degrees of unfitness. Last week, with his response to the march of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, he sank to an amazing new low.

He crossed a new line not in defending the right of neo-Nazis and white supremacists to march, nor in expressing the view that Confederate statues shouldn't be taken down (until recently, a permissible position, even if it's wrong). And he didn't cross it by pointing out that some of the counter-protesters turned up looking for a fight (because they did). Instead, the jaw-dropping moment was Trump's claim that marching alongside the avowed racists, fascists and other degenerates in Charlottesville were some "very fine people."