The 'bully pulpit' in a divided nation

After condemning Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on Monday, President Trump spoke again yesterday of this weekend’s violence at the University of Virginia. The White House scheduled a press conference to change the subject from Saturday’s violence at the University of Virginia to infrastructure repair, but President Trump turned it into another defense of armed white racists and the demonstration they called Unite-the-Right. He seemed to find moral equivalence between armed white racists supporting a Confederate symbol and those who protested.

David Duke and other white nationalists say they’re grateful for those words; Republicans are almost unanimous in their outrage. What are the consequences when a President provokes ideas and emotions that go back to the Civil War?