By Nick Hughes
Opinion Editor

At the Snapper meetings, we have every week to go over layout and pitch story ideas we always have a lot of fun and good criticism. When I pitch my story ideas, I always try to mention the President only once because I am not a fan of his at all. I also do not like to mention Nazis but that has, unfortunately, been a theme to my story idea pitches. I must bring up Nazi’s and I hate that I do.

Some might ask, why I would include Trump in my intro about Nazis.My response would be  this reason and this reason alone, “They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” Donald Trump was talking about Nazi’s having “very fine people.” The question in context was about the Charlottesville protests. There were Nazi’s there, and they are “very fine people.” Nazis. Possibly the definition of evil in the world.

You could bring up the point that Antifa—the group opposing the Nazis at the time—is supposedly a bad group as well; but my counterpoint is simple. Antifa is a shortened version of Anti-Fascists. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of fascism is as follows, “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

Antifa opposes that and they are the bad guys? I do not think so. This is what the Nazi’s want: they want what Hitler wanted. White, straight, abd healthy and that is it. Other groups are below them according to the Nazi’s themselves. Donald Trump claims that Nazis are fine and has never really condemned them or the KKK for that matter as domestic terrorist organizations. I believe that is what they are. 

The riots at Charlottesville was a while back so most have forgotten about them and moved on to the newest issue Trump is causing, but I wanted to take a moment and remind everyone who is reading this of a simple fact. Nazi’s, in any form, are evil. Our President refuses to condemn them and if anything bolsters them instead. 

The whole of the alt-right—neo-Nazis, KKK and all those types of groups—feel like they are validated right now. Donald Trump is not targeting them and he, in my honest opinion, supports them. He may act like he doesn’t like them sometimes, but the façade doesn’t last as long as his next Tweet. I am tired of the tragedies happening under this president: the shootings, the killing, the violence. 

It may seem that I am harping on this, and I think that is accurate. I am determined, in what little capacity that I have, to write opposition to these groups and to Donald Trump. I want to be a decent human being and if that means I must oppose other Americans to do so, so be it. I will not associate with Nazi’s, KKK members, alt-right enthusiasts, or white nationalists. I stand with those that these groups have oppressed and I will continue to do so.