Last week, in Virginia, the birthplace of more presidents than any other, a woman died protesting Nazis, mowed down by a white supremacist in a Dodge Charger. This new president’s reaction was to blame “many sides.”

I blame Obama. And Chrysler Motors.

Seven months into this sideshow (not exactly the phrase I would like to use), when will diehard Trump apologists finally admit electing him was a grievous mistake? But you have to give him some credit. It didn’t take him long to make Nazi Germany great again. Russia’s next.

True to form, “President” Trump passed the buck — unlike Harry S. Truman — saying that hate and division cannot be linked to his presidency because it has “been going on for a long, long time.”

There’s a whisper of the truth there, something with which we’ve come to disassociate with the 45th president. We’ve come a long way from “I cannot tell a lie” to rapt amazement when this one even gets close to the truth. This isn’t horseshoes — although you can lose the popular vote in America by 3 million votes and still claim a mandate. To be fair, those 3 million illegal voters did show up for the Inauguration.

If Trump were Catholic, he’d set records for shortest confession, provided he didn’t first burst into flames at the threshold like Bela Lugosi, because he is incapable of admitting his mistakes. These are more than mistakes; they are the politics of division.

Yet, this president, who has managed to break 11 of the 10 Commandments, is supported by the apocalypse-embracing nut job members of the Christian right, who are so deluded, he could pass gas and they’d call it perfume. Trump could tack Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the Rose Garden trellis and some crazies would justify it as fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

I understand their affection for the president. The man speaks in tongues.

While clergy men and women marched against the Steve Bannon-endorsed “Alt Right” ugliness in Charlottesville, most high profile family values Republicans played ostrich. Or chicken. Choose any bird with a small brain that can’t fly.

Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer nailed it when he said that Trump has emboldened racists. “Look at the campaign he ran,” he said. “Look at the intentional courting both, on the one hand, of all these white supremacists, white nationalist groups like that, anti-Semitic groups. And then look on the other hand, the repeated failure to step up, condemn, denounce, silence … put to bed all those different efforts.”

I have a Jewish friend who thinks I have been unfair in my criticism of Trump. I wonder what he thinks about the emboldenment of Nazism in America. KKK leader David Duke sees the Nazi rally in Virginia as the fulfillment of Trump’s vision for the country.

“We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said. “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”

True, Trump didn’t create the culture of intolerance, but he amplified it. To be fair, the alt-right protesters did show a hint of inclusiveness with the use of tiki torches — a tip of the hat to our first Hawaiian president? Later, they gathered for pineapple pizza.

And from Trump enablers across the country? Silence. Or excuses for a president who encourages police brutality (wink, wink, against people of color). KFYR radio talk show host Scott Hennen (“Defending the values of faith, family and freedom …”) explained on social media that Trump is a street fighter. Good, because judging from his five deferments during the Vietnam War, when he was heroically avoiding STD’s while grabbing crotches with his incredibly small hands, we know he isn’t a jungle fighter.

Tiny fingers come in handy as the leader of the free world — oops, excuse me, I just got the president confused with Angela Merkel — because it’s easier to tweet out nonsensical orders on your smart phone’s minuscule keyboard. Things like banning transgender soldiers from the military because, hey, when sexuality gets ambiguous, how do you know which crotch to grab? Contrast that with the aforementioned Truman, who in 1948, signed an executive order of inclusiveness, desegregating and abolishing racial discrimination in our armed forces.

Of course, Truman was the only president to order the use of atomic weapons, and the debate rages on about the necessity of that decision, but is there anyone who wouldn’t rather have Give ‘Em Hell Harry in the White House right now? Even dead at the age of 133, he’d make better decisions. Instead, we have President Golf Cart trading barbs with the equally insecure Kim Jong-Un, possibly the only leader with a worse haircut.

But the stock market is doing great! I’m loading my portfolio with Ambien and alcohol because heaven knows it’s getting harder for Americans to sleep at night. (I’m still tossing and turning over Hillary’s e-mails.) I’m also taking a flyer on Aqua Net and Elmer’s Glue stock because that has to be what holds Trump’s hair in place when the wind blows unimpeded through his ears.

Until next week, duck and cover.

© Tony Bender, 2017