Like that would come across as sincere

I see that Claire Lehmann, whose Quillette site has made a speciality of encouraging Right wing panic over antifa (current death count:  0), has re-tweeted the Washington Examiner's call for Trump to clearly and unequivocally denounce white nationalist terrorism.

Even in doing so, the Examiner can't help but attack part of the Left:

Plenty in the media and in politics blame Trump for the rise of white nationalism. Many of them are the same folks who have always argued that conservatism — whether tax cuts, defense of the unborn, or belief in free enterprise — is just thinly veiled racism, and on these grounds alone they don't deserve to be taken seriously. Even so, a president has to be above the blame game played by his critics. The single best way to prove them wrong would be for Trump to crusade actively against white nationalism.  

Well, that's big of them.

It's also a bit of a joke.   As someone writes in comments following Lehmann's tweet:

Yes:  how on earth could Trump possibly come across as sincere when he built his election campaign on fear of Hispanic and other immigration, and has continually re-stoked the fear at unnecessary rallies (done only to boost his ego) since holding office.

As for Lehmann:  I haven't spent a lot of time at Quillette, but my impression is that some of the essays there are OK - the ones which aren't so overtly political mainly - but I still get a strong impression that she is at heart a professional concern troll.   Her pre-Quillette video about the connection between feminism and obesity gave off a strong vibe of insincere "but I'm just being reasonable here".    Given that her site now is one of the prime ones giving diversionary cover to Republicans on the issue of white nationalism (but look - antifa!),  and her antifa star Andy Ngo apparently tweeted a 2016 video of car damage around the time of the El Paso shooting, I find her internet activity on this topic, at the very least, unhelpful.

I should also mention her attitude to publishing the "look, some journalists follow antifa on Twitter" article, which some of the journalists believe led to death threats from white nationalists, was pretty much inexcusable.  

Of course, none of this is to say that antifa should be ignored, and that questions around the policing of rallies should not be raised.  But until Lehmann lets her site show some more perspective on where the more serious problem in the USA lies, I don't give her credit for claiming to be Ms Reasonable.



.