Colorado Senator Cory Gardner is not letting yesterday’s events go, and that’s good. He shouldn’t.

None of us should.

Gardner took to the Sunday morning talk shows to condemn the vile rhetoric of the white nationalists and the root that is taking hold and laying claim to the “right” in this nation.

Said Gardner:

“White nationalists, white supremacists, they’re not a part of anybody’s base. They’re not a part of this country. They’re a part of hatred, they’re a part of evil, and we need to stand up to that,” Gardner told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” during a discussion of violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

And that is what I’ve been stressing to people all morning.

It was our countrymen’s blood that was spilled to secure our rights, including the First Amendment. It was American blood shed on foreign soil, in order to stop Nazism. The idea that we would allow that ideology to be imported here, and then to allow it to flourish is reprehensible.

If you’re supporting a foreign ideology of hate on American soil, you are not a valid part of this nation and don’t deserve to enjoy its freedoms.

“Whether it’s the president of the United States, a senator from any of our great 50 states around the country, or our city councils and school teachers, call it for what it is. It’s hatred, it’s bigotry. We don’t want them in our base, they shouldn’t be in a base, they shouldn’t be claimed as part of a base, and it has to be made crystal clear,” he continued.

He’s right.

We will not easily wash this stain from the resume of Republicans or conservatives, who will be lumped into one pile with these evil wretches, whether we support them or not. The leadership of the GOP, including (and especially) the president need to call it out by name, condemn it, and turn their backs on it, completely – not just for political expediency, but because it’s the right thing to do.

“He should use this opportunity today to say this is terrorism, this is domestic terrorism, this is white nationalism and it has to stop, and I encourage the president to do so,” he said.

And if you want to know what it is that the president should be standing against, or how his role in this is viewed, look no further than this tweet from the hatemonger known as David Duke:

I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists. https://t.co/Rkfs7O2Ykr

— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 12, 2017

Trump wasn’t elected to be the “white” president. He’s supposed to be our nation’s president, and because this element has attached itself like a parasite to his campaign, and his presidency that is all the more reason he should rebuke it completely, openly, and now.