Things have gone sideways in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has declared a state of emergency in the city, after the alt-right, white nationalists making up the “Unite the Right” (Or was it “Unite the White”?) rally at Emancipation Park dissolved into a hellish, chaotic scene.

Fights broke out hours before a protest was scheduled in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park, where white supremacists, white nationalists and alt-right groups were gathering to protest the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Saturday’s rally followed a Friday night protest in which hundreds of white nationalists carrying torches marched through the campus of the University of Virginia.

House Speaker Paul Ryan issued a strong statement on social media, condemning the rally participants.

The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant. Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry.

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) August 12, 2017

And vile, they are.

The hope is that law enforcement will be able to quell the tensions quickly, and with as little damage to property or injury to persons, as possible.

Sadly, the very cause they were supposedly there to stand for – stopping the scrubbing of history and heritage from the public landscape – was probably more damaged because of their actions.

There has to be a compromise that rational people can come to.

But not with these guys. These guys are idiots.