Trump is wrong again with his support of the far right

There is no moral equivalence between the storm troopers of the American extreme right – the KKK, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and assorted admirers of the Third Reich – and the anti-fascist demonstrators who are determined that the evils of that hate-filled ideology shall not pass.

It is the responsibility of all those who have memory or knowledge of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s across Europe and beyond to stand up and oppose the resurgence of such repugnant inhuman nonsense, and we owe that to the memory of the millions who died at the hands of fascists.

I am proud to remember that in 1962 in Manchester, I, along with other left-wing students, tried to stop a march led by Sir Oswald Mosley, the British fascist leader and friend of Adolf Hitler, at a time he tried to resurrect his discredited political career.

I was arrested for my trouble, charged with breaching the peace and fined two guineas (how quaint). Plus ça change. The people of Charlottesville and now Boston have the right (and I would argue, the moral duty) to oppose the extreme right.

That Trump, in his bizarre ramblings, 3am tweets or whatever, can give succour to those people, emboldening racists to demonstrate their vile views, and they in turn thanking him for the support they believe he gives them, may be further evidence of the early demise of his dysfunctional presidency.

We now know that his belated condemnation of racism, a position forced upon him by the political outrage at home and furore abroad, was delivered at the insistence of his close advisors, and that within 48 hours, he had reverted to type, expressing equivocation that all sides were to blame.

He either doesn’t understand anti-racism or he doesn’t believe in it. Either way, he continues to be an embarrassment to a great nation.

It is to be hoped that he will not last much longer.

David Askins, Lightmoor