Let’s rewind to the most obvious Nazi cosplay event in recent U.S. history: the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 11–12, 2017. If you somehow forgot what this was (in which case, I’m sincerely jealous), it was a two-day hatefest featuring torch-wielding white nationalists, open anti-Semitism, Confederate cosplay, and the kind of khaki-pants-and-polo-shirt racism that smells like Axe body spray and unresolved daddy issues.

The rally was billed as a protest against the removal of Confederate monuments. Translation: It was a temper tantrum by a bunch of white guys with tiki torches who couldn’t handle the fact that maybe—just maybe—statues of slave-owning traitors aren’t a great look in the 21st century.

(If you want the full background on the Lost Cause mythology that inspired these monument worshippers, read Part One of this series.)

Donald Trump infamously weighed in with his “very fine people on both sides” statement during a press conference on August 15, 2017. Let’s dissect that for what it was: an attempted both-sidesing of literal Nazis and the people protesting them. The full transcript is available here.

And yes, before the Snopes defense squad arrives clutching their pearls, he technically said there were fine people who were just there to protest the removal of a statue. But that’s like saying someone at a Klan rally was just there for the barbecue. Sorry, Karen. That’s not how this works.

There were no “fine people” there. The rally was organized by white nationalist Jason Kessler, whose resume includes a stint writing for the white supremacist site VDARE and affiliations with the alt-right. He invited a who’s-who of racist sewage: Richard Spencer (Nazi cosplayer and coiner of the term “alt-right”), Matthew Heimbach (neo-Nazi LARPer and founder of the now-defunct Traditionalist Worker Party), and David Duke (the OG of white hooded sociopathy). This was not a history club meeting at your local library. It was a street-level experiment in Christofascist power projection.

Let’s be clear: it wasn’t just goose-stepping Nazis and incels with torches. The rally brought together a wide spectrum of reactionary filth, united under a big racist tent.

You had:

Some came for the statue, but stayed for the hate. Some came for the hate and used the statue as a smokescreen. But make no mistake: their causes were interconnected. Whether cloaked in religious traditionalism, gun rights rhetoric, white grievance politics, or Confederate cosplay, they were all there to assert dominance over the same thing: modernity and multicultural democracy.

And let’s not forget the local enablers who may not have marched, but certainly sent prayers and casseroles. Local churches and community groups stayed largely silent, lest they be accused of getting political. They knew what was happening. They just didn’t care enough to say it out loud.

These weren’t just godless white nationalists. Many of them were deeply religious. Christianity—or rather, a mutated, weaponized form of it—was inextricably tied to the event.

Crosses were carried like war standards. Bibles were flaunted. Dominion theology showed up in everything from chants to signs. The Christofascists came ready to fuse God and guns with government. And they’ve only gotten bolder since.

Groups like the New Columbia Movement, which markets itself as a Christian nationalist organization, and followers of figures like Doug Wilson and Michael Peroutka (who believes the Confederate Constitution was more biblically sound than the U.S. one), are part of the same ideological ecosystem.

The white cross on red flags? That wasn’t irony. That was theology as fascist branding.

The rally was centered around the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park (formerly, of course, Lee Park). These statues weren’t about history—they were about dominance. If you want the receipts on that, go read Part One.

Take the statue of “Silent Sam” at UNC Chapel Hill, which was installed in 1913 and dedicated with a speech praising the Confederate dead for having “stood for their Anglo-Saxon race… and their women and children… even unto death.” That’s not subtle. That’s white supremacy in granite.

What followed the Charlottesville horror show was a masterclass in bothsides-ism and media cowardice. Outlets like Snopes bent over backwards to “contextualize” Trump’s remarks. Suddenly, we were being told that maybe Trump didn’t mean to equate the people marching with Nazis to the ones protesting against them. That perhaps he was referring to a separate group of concerned citizens who just really love Confederate statuary.

Oh, sweet summer child. There was no separate group. They weren’t marching in a different place or at a different time. They were side by side with open fascists, chanting the same slogans and marching in lockstep—literally—toward a shared goal: preserving white hegemony under the banner of Southern pride and Christian exceptionalism. Snopes lied. There’s no other way to put that. For whatever reason, Snopes looked at the facts and then invented an excuse to cover them.

Even the president of the University of Virginia, whose campus was stormed by torch-bearing mobs chanting “Jews will not replace us,” hesitated to call out the movement for what it was. That’s not fence-sitting. That’s cowardice in a cardigan.

One of the most damning moments came on August 12, when white nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, murdering 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more. He was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

At the rally, many of Fields’ fellow fascists were caught on tape cheering the attack. These were the people Trump referred to when he said there were “fine people” among them.

If you’re still defending that statement, you’re either willfully delusional or you’ve joined the cult.

Here’s a rundown of some of the clowns, charlatans, and Christofascists who made Charlottesville their coming-out party:

These were the main stage players. Behind them were thousands of cosplaying wannabe Brownshirts, organized militia groups, and armed evangelicals LARPing a race war. And they were dead serious.

Let’s entertain that delusion one last time. Suppose there were, say, 20 people who showed up to peacefully protest the statue’s removal. The moment they saw the torches, the chants of “blood and soil,” the swastikas, and the tactical gear—what did they do?

If they stayed? They’re complicit.

If they left? Then they weren’t at the rally and don’t count.

So no. There were not “fine people” at the rally. There were apologists, collaborators, and cowards. And the media whitewashed their sins with euphemisms and false equivalence.

Charlottesville wasn’t just a rally, it was a field test. Could far-right extremists unite disparate factions—Nazis, Proud Boys, Identity Evropa, militia types, Christian dominionists—into a single violent front?

The answer was yes. The real takeaway wasn’t Trump’s statement. It was that the fascists learned they could do this again. Bigger. Louder. With more guns.

And they did. January 6, 2021 was the sequel. And guess what? They got inside that time.

Charlottesville was never just about statues. It was about testing whether Americans—especially white, churchgoing ones—would tolerate fascism as long as it came wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.

Turns out? A lot of them would.