Donald Trump (White House photo)

Hundreds of neo-Nazis, Klansmen and other white supremacists shamelessly reviving Hitler’s torchlight parades and Nazi salutes; carrying clubs and shields, accompanied by their own militia brandishing semi-automatic rifles and pistols; the crowd waving swastikas, Confederate flags and other white nationalist banners; chanting “Jews will not replace us,” “Africa for blacks, America for whites” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil”; making monkey noises and yelling horrible racist things at black counter-protesters; throwing water bottles filled with urine, pepper spray and other chemicals at those counter-protesters.

That would have been nearly inconceivable just a couple of years ago in this country, but it actually happened this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Such groups and their views have been considered the lunatic fringe in this country for at least the last half-century. We knew they had a vast network, but society properly marginalized their horrible agenda, which is to get rid of all non-white people in the U.S. No politician or celebrity could go near such views and survive public scrutiny. The lessons of the Civil War, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement were still too deeply engrained in too many Americans to allow otherwise.

Now, though, these bigots are emboldened, energized and out of the shadows. They aren’t leftovers from the 1950s and ’60s, either; young men dominated the Charlottesville demonstrators.

They’re aggressive, too. They didn’t just come to express their First Amendment rights to speak freely, much less to “peaceably assemble.” They were not peaceable. They came armed, ready to fight, and fight they did: at their unpermitted torchlight march Friday night and again before their “Unite the Right” rally was scheduled to start Saturday. Then, after the skirmishes got so bad that the police canceled the rally before it was supposed to start, a 20-year-old white supremacist from Ohio took it upon himself to ram his car into a crowd of people on a nearby street, killing one and injuring 19 others.

When a small, violent radical group attacks and intimidates to scare the public, that’s terrorism, especially when those attacks are deadly. Look at how much terror this Charlottesville event has struck into Americans’ hearts.

Again, this would not have happened a couple of years ago.

So what changed?

As if we had to ask.

If you have any doubt, just ask the racists. They’re clear about what gives them hope — it’s last year’s election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

He was the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, “America first,” “Make America Great Again” candidate — the same kind of rhetoric all extreme nationalist leaders start out with. His right-hand man was nationalist Brietbart chief Steve Bannon. Richard Spencer told the New Yorker that, while he didn’t think Trump was a white nationalist like himself, Trump has a unique ability to tap into white people’s fear “that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country.”

Former KKK leader and arch-racist David Duke said last year that he and Trump shared the same agenda. Trump didn’t reject Duke’s endorsement at first. He eventually did, under heavy public pressure, but in his hesitation these racists read the wink and nudge they were looking for.

Trump was also slow and soft in his criticism of white supremacists after the Charlottesville violence. He initially condemned bigotry and hatred “on many sides,” as if fighting against Nazis and Klansmen is just as bad as being one. Millions of Americans were furious. White supremacists declared victory.

“We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,” Duke proclaimed.

Two days later, on Monday, Trump finally made a stronger public statement, saying “racism is evil” and condemning white supremacists as “criminals and thugs,” singling out neo-Nazis and the KKK. Leading up to it, however, he had complained that the media wouldn’t be happy no matter what he said, suggesting his condemnation was to be taken with a grain of salt.

Then Trump backtracked Tuesday afternoon, saying “there’s blame on both sides” and that counter-protesters, whom he called the “alt-left” were “also very violent.”

Let’s be clear: While some counter-protesters were deep into the brawling Saturday — and we reject their violence as well — the atrocity here is not fisticuffs. It’s the genocidal agenda. Only one side in this fight wanted entire races of people wiped out.

If Trump draws a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and those who fight them, he may as well draw the same equivalency between original Nazis and the Allied troops who fought them in World War II.

Worse still is the thought that maybe these are calculated political statements by Trump rather than personal, off-the-cuff opinions. We expect his team is hard at work on this with him. That would suggest they are trying not to offend white voters who are so racist they hold the Klan and the Nazis in high regard. It would mean Trump’s team believes these racist voters are numerous, a major constituency.

Could that be right? After grappling for a few minutes with the enormity of that idea, we conclude that no, it is not. Americans are better than that. Bigotry, sadly, is alive and well in America and has grown under Trump’s leadership, but it’s not as bad as that.

Still, it’s horrifying that this man is our president.

We must call here on Republicans and all others who voted for Trump. Look where he has led you. Is that where you want to be — catering to Nazis and the KKK? Do they share your values?

If not, you must reject Trump and work to eject him from the presidency. If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now that he is leading our country down a path toward a race war.

We don’t see any chance of him having an epic conversion: apologizing for playing a major role in these hate groups’ growth and putting the federal law enforcement apparatus to bear on their terrorism. Even if he did, we haven’t seen the last of these rallies — or worse.

The mother of the Charlottesville murderer told a reporter she didn’t know he was going to a white supremacist rally. All she knew, she said, was that it had something to do with Trump. Yes, it did.