When Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, he had left explicit instructions on what was to be engraved on his headstone: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” In his letter of instruction, Jefferson noted that “these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.” (Notably, there is no mention of his two presidential terms.)

Last October, a battle began brewing in Charlottesville — an effort to purge Thomas Jefferson from the University of Virginia he founded, because he had slaves on his Monticello plantation. Jefferson even fathered a child with one of those slaves, the half-sister of his deceased wife, Sally Hemings.

In January, after Hillary Clinton’s demise and Donald Trump’s inauguration, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer hosted a rally declaring his town a “capital of resistance.” Signer, who was chosen to be mayor by Charlottesville’s leftist city council, a group of Berkeley wannabes, is himself a graduate of UC Berkeley and a rising darling of the Left.

Signer is a political hack for Virginia’s alien governor and noted Clintonista, Terry McAuliffe. He worked with John Podesta to elect Barack Obama in 2008, and the following year joined McAuliffe’s finance team.

As Charlottesville’s mayor, Signer, who ironically teaches an undergraduate UVA seminar titled “Leadership, Statesmanship, and Democracy,” established a “Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces” to rally support for dismantling historic statues of Virginia sons, including, most notably, Robert E. Lee. Of course, this was less about rallying support for removal of historic statues and more about rallying support for Signer’s future political aspirations.

In February, our editor Thomas Gallatin wrote about the Charlottesville council’s historical purges, noting, “We betray the historical record if we erase from it the narrative and perspective of those who experienced it. Indeed, it is the fool who rejects the lessons of the past in favor of his own modern prejudices.”

Signer designated $1 million in funding to redesign parks featuring monuments to Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and Lee Park has since been renamed “Emancipation Park.”

Over the weekend, fascist and socialist thugs from around the nation descended on that Charlottesville park and, predictably, the anarcho-socialists and anarcho-fascists attacked each other, leaving one protester dead and many injured. Notably, two Virginia State Police officers, Lt. Jay Cullen and Trooper-pilot Berke Bates, were killed when the helicopter they were using to observe the protest crashed south of Charlottesville.

According to New York Times reporter Hawes Spencer, it was a mutual hate fest: “The entirety of Downtown Charlottesville looked like a war zone. Protesters maced each other, threw water bottles and urine balloons — some of which hit reporters — and generally beat the crap out of each other with flagpoles.”

Just as predictable was the descent of the Demo/MSM propaganda machine on Charlottesville, and the Leftmedia outlets are having a field day with this disgraceful and tragic clash of competing hate factions. It provides top-of-the-fold fodder to accuse Trump, and anyone else on the conservative side of the political ledger, of benign sympathy with Nazi white supremacists. It also provides the Beltway echo chambers an opportunity to portray such hatred as “mainstream” rather than minuscule fringe elements of our society — because such hyperbolic reporting sells advertising.

For the record, while the white racists were being cast as “right-wing,” both the clashing groups are anarchists — by definition, left-wing. Additionally, there were significant concerns about these hate factions erupting in violence well in advance of last Saturday. The current issue of The Atlantic notes the “Rise of the Violent Left.” But as McAuliffe lamented, “You can’t stop some crazy guy who came here from Ohio and used his car as a weapon.”

Of course, Democrat leaders, ever the consummate race-bait political hustlers, will seize every chance to divert attention from the fact that their Party has been hijacked by neo-socialists — knowing that Democrat Socialism, like Nationalist Socialism, is nothing more than Marxist Socialism repackaged.

Decrying the violence in Charlottesville, Trump said, “We condemn in the strongest most possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. No matter our color, creed, religion or political party we are all Americans first.”

Naturally, that was not sufficient for the Leftmedia or Republicans who know full well those media outlets will label them as “soft on supremacists.”

Sunday, the White House communications staff followed up with this assertion in response: “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”

Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo noted, “If Donald Trump called out every single white supremacist by name it would not be enough [because] we have had [white supremacy] hanging around our neck for decades.”

Indeed, Democrats, the party of racist segregation, is quick to label Republicans, actually the party of emancipation, “racist.” At they same time, Democrats have embraced the Leftist protestors.

Despite their howls about Trump’s condemnation of both the hate factions, one of the nation’s most noted liberal protagonists, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, says that the Democrats should not embrace those trying to “tear down America.”

Dershowitz implores his fellow Democrats: “Do not glorify the violent people who are now tearing down the statues. Many of these people, not all of them, many of these people are trying to tear down America. Antifa is a radical, anti-America, anti-free market, communist, socialist, hard-left sensorial organization… They use violence. Just because they are opposed to fascism and to some of these monuments, should not make them heroes of the liberals. … Doing what Stalin did, just erasing history and rewriting it to serve current purposes does pose a danger. And it poses a danger of education malpractice. I’m a liberal, and I think it’s the obligation of liberals to speak out against the hard-left radicals, just like it’s the obligation of conservatives to speak out against the extremism of the hard right.”

In addition to all the national Demos condemning Trump, popping up on every Leftmedia cable network was Mayor Signer, hoping this conflict will propel him to higher political heights and milking it for every ounce of political capital he could squeeze from it.

Signer on CNN: Look at the intentional courting, on one hand, of all these white supremacists, white nationalists … and look on the other hand at the repeated failure to step up, condemn, denounce, silence, put to bed all of these different efforts, just like we saw yesterday.

Signer on NBC: These influences around the country, these anti-Semites, racists, Aryans, Nazis, KKK, they were always in the shadows, but they’ve been given a key and a reason to come in the light. We saw a conscious decision to dance with all these devils in our politics. We saw them on full display. Now they’re comfortable to come out in open daylight. … I place the blame for a lot of what you’re seeing in America today right at the doorstep of the White House.

Signer on CBS: He made a choice in his presidential campaign and the folks around with him to go right to the gutter, to play on our worst prejudices, and I think you’re seeing a direct line from what happened here this weekend to those choices. … They were invited into basically a presidential campaign.

Signer on NPR: “Anyone who watched the presidential campaign saw an invitation of bigotry, hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, into the mainstream American civil society.

Clearly, Democrat Party operatives will keep fanning the flames of this latest chapter of racial unrest as long as possible. I note, however that it is the Democrats who still promotes the statist policies which have enslaved mostly poor black folks on urban poverty plantations for generations – more than were ever enslaved on Democrat agricultural plantations – and they are dying equally violent deaths.

Returning to the issue that was a catalyst for the clash of thugs in Charlottesville, if the historical erasers are going to tear down statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, then most certainly any monuments to Jefferson and George Washington should be purged, including those on the National Mall. And certainly the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia should be ceremonially burned, and Jefferson’s University of Virginia should be leveled. In fact, Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia — Mayor Mike Signer’s alma mater — should be torn down…

Footnote: At one time, I provided consultation for federal, state and local law enforcement teams investigating hate groups. At that time, the neo-NAZI/KKK and their racist ilk were fringe anarchists, and their numbers are further diminished now. But incidents like Charlottesville are not only fodder for the Demo/MSM machine, but bread-and-butter fundraising opportunities for groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which depend on rare eruptions of hate groups in order to make budget. You will not find any references on these websites to much more common ”black supremacists“ groups or "hate” labels for violent socialists. They certainly would not suggest that “all lives matter.”