“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” Mr. Trump said. He later explained that he meant both sides of the debate over whether to remove a Confederate monument and that the antisemitic chanters were the “very bad people” he had in mind. He should have been clearer from the start.

This week Mr. Biden had his own moment of unclarity. Asked on Monday about current events on campus across the country, he said: “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” He then mumbled a few unintelligible words.

Mr. Biden seemed to be saying that pro-Hamas demonstrators are no worse than pro-Israel demonstrators who believe that “what’s going on with Palestinians” is ultimately Hamas’s fault for invading Israel, barbarically attacking its people, and using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Drawing such an equivalence is at best morally obtuse.