‍

Expert on US affairs, Harvey Dzodin, thinks that President Donald Trump's failure to explicitly condemn white supremacists has given the far right impetus and pleased groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

“We have a rocky road ahead,” Dzodin said, "Trump's refusal to condemn the right-wing could please white supremacists."

"Keeping statues and monuments which commemorate the Confederate States of America doesn’t mean a celebration of slavery and racism, we need to remember what history went through," he added.

His comments come after violent clashes erupted during the Unite the Right rally in the town of Charlottesville, Virginia from August 11 to 12.

Far right demonstrators marched to the university to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

They clashed with counter-protestors before a car rammed into a crowd of anti-right wing demonstrators, killing one person and injuring 19 others.

But arguably just as controversial as the demonstrations themselves, were the contradictory responses from Trump.

During a series of speeches in the days following the Charlottesville violence, Trump appeared to alternately blast then defend the right wing, often laying the blame for clashes on both sides of the political spectrum without explicitly condemning white supremacists.

During a press conference on August 14, Trump said, "Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs," and branded neo-Nazis and white supremacists as "repugnant".

However, speaking the very next day, Trump again reverted to his argument that the fault for the violent clashes rested on "many sides".

This flip-flopping by the President has been interpreted by some as legitimizing racism and extremist views.

And Rong Ying, Vice President of China Institute of International Studies, says that part of this movement is the re-appropriation of American cultural symbols.

"In the United States, they used to be very proud that Robert Lee and the Confederacy has been defeated. But they were able to maintain it as part of the history and the culture of the United States, but now this has become problematic because these white nationalists, these supremacists, they are now using this as a symbol to campaign for something that is a challenge to the core values of the United States," he said.