DONALD'S "VERY FINE PEOPLE":

When white nationalists descended upon the historic Virginia city to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, their "Unite the Right" rally gathered a veritable who's who of top neo-Nazis in the United States, including Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and alt-right leading light Richard Spencer, among others.

They immediately went after the Jews. At their Friday night rally at the University of Virginia, the white nationalists brandished torches and chanted anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans, including "blood and soil" (an English rendering of the Nazi "blut und boden") and "Jews will not replace us" -- all crafted to cast Jews as foreign interlopers who need to be expunged. The attendees proudly displayed giant swastikas and wore shirts emblazoned with quotes from Adolf Hitler. One banner read, "Jews are Satan's children."

"The truth is," Duke told a large crowd Saturday, "the American media, and the American political system, and the American Federal Reserve, is dominated by a tiny minority: the Jewish Zionist cause." Addressing another group, Richard Spencer mocked Charlottesville's Jewish mayor, Mike Signer. "Little Mayor Signer -- 'See-ner' -- how do you pronounce this little creep's name?" Spencer asked. The crowd responded by chanting, "Jew, Jew, Jew." In TV interviews, attendees were not shy about their anti-Semitism.

And James Fields Jr., the man who is accused of mowing down protesters that day, killing one and injuring 19, "had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler," according to his high school history teacher. He was previously photographed at a rally for Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi group dedicated to fighting "the international Jew."

What we know about the alleged driver of the car that plowed into Charlottesville crowd

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, is accused of driving his car into a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. (Video: Elyse Samuels, Sarah Parnass, Whitney Leaming/Photo: Getty Images/The Washington Post)

None of this should surprise us. The United States' white nationalists have made no secret of their special hate for Jews, particularly during the 2016 campaign and its aftermath.

Inspired by Donald Trump, Duke himself ran for Senate in Louisiana, spending much of his time on the primary debate stage ranting against the Jews. When Melania Trump was found to have plagiarized Michelle Obama in her Republican National Convention address, Duke declared he'd "bet a gefilte fish" that it was Jewish sabotage.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump's alt-right supporters barraged Jewish journalists with online abuse, including CNN's Jake Tapper, the Atlantic's Julia Ioffe and me, photoshopping us into gas chambers and concentration camps.

This conduct is not incidental to the white nationalist program; it is essential.

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