The racial clashes that led to the death of three people, including two state troopers, in Charlottesville, Va. may seem complex but they’re actually sickeningly, frighteningly clear.

The white supremacists, protesting the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, were loaded for bear with torches, Confederate and Nazi flags and shields, evoking the Ku Klux Klan, a terrifying image from my childhood. They were met by counter-protestors, who carried the day – until a car plowed into them, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19. In all, 35 were injured. (The troopers were killed when their surveilling helicopter crashed.)

President Donald J. Trump initially took to his favorite medium, Twitter, to condemn the violence, then expanded on the theme at a veterans’ event at his Bedminster, N.J. golf club, denouncing “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

“It’s been going on for a long time in our country. It’s not Donald Trump. It’s not Barack Obama,” Trump said. He then called for the restoration of law and order and unity among Americans of all races, colors, creeds and political persuasions.

Let’s be fair to the president. These kinds of situations are never easy for anyone, let alone the one person everyone is looking to for solace and guidance. And he’s right that racism in America has been ingrained for so long that it far precedes Obama and Trump. (It’s noteworthy that Trump didn’t use the tragedy as another instance to blame Obama, but then some speechwriter probably thought it unwise to denigrate the first black president under the circumstances.)

Having said this, we must note that Trump’s moral blindness is partly responsible for Charlottesville. The very fact that he could speak of “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” shows that he just doesn’t get it. Hatred of hate, bigotry against bigotry is not hate, is not bigotry. The denunciation of evil is not evil.

Yes, I agree with Melania Trump, the first person from the White House to comment on the tragedy by the way, who tweeted that “Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let’s communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence.” And yes, we resisters are sometimes too quick to jump down the throats of the members of the opposition. They have a right to lawful, peaceful assembly.

But there is also the violence of words and attitudes in the hatred of immigrants, Muslims, Jews, blacks, gays, transgender individuals, the disabled and women. That’s on you, Mr. President and your advisers like Steve Bannon, who practice the politics of meanness.

There’s a simple reason why some white people feel put upon: They have held power since this nation was founded. And it’s hard to share power. But share they must, because they are going to be a minority by mid-century.

This is their last hurrah. Trump is their last hurrah. And it’s not going well.

The president is next scheduled to return to New York City’s Trump Tower for the first time since he took office. He is returning to the place that nurtured him, a sanctuary city where 800 languages are spoken, the most by any city in the world.

Let us hope – no, let us pray – that for once he will remember the city of his birth in the spirit of that city and not as the place he has so clearly left behind.