A jury's $25 million judgment last week against the white nationalist organizers of the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, sends a strong, promising message: Try as supporters of former President Donald Trump have to normalize violent racism, the American mainstream still considers it abhorrent.

The events of August 2017 encapsulate the worst elements of the Trump era. The "Unite the Right" rally did exactly that, looping in various elements of the far right — neo-Nazis, Klansmen, Confederate sympathizers — to defend a statue of Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee. The event was at first pathetic and on the verge of being comical as societal misfits marched around with store-bought patio torches chanting "Jews will not replace us." But it turned deadly when a right-wing zealot plowed his car into the crowd, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, and injuring others.

It is in such moments that presidents are supposed to step up and remind the country of our core values. A reasonable presidential statement would have condemned the hatemongers behind the protest who set the stage for the tragedy. But the president at the time, Trump, instead showed once again his own twisted values, declaring that there were "very fine people on both sides" — which by definition would include the side composed of avowed racists or those willing to march alongside avowed racists. These were not "fine people" by any moral standard.

The civil suit was filed by people injured in the car attack, among others, against the driver of the car as well as the main organizers of the rally. The jury deadlocked on federal conspiracy charges but assessed hefty punitive damages in regard to the state charges. That left no question that the jury believed the defendants should be punished not only for the physical injuries they caused but also for fostering the violence in the first place.

The jury found that the defendants were liable for damages under Virginia law for engaging in a conspiracy that led to the injuries. Among the damages were $500,000 in punitive awards to be paid by each of 12 individual defendants, including Richard Spencer, arguably the most prominent white nationalist leader in the U.S. today. The jury also assessed $1 million each against five white nationalist organizations.

James Fields, who is already serving multiple life sentences for murdering Heyer with the car, was found liable for $12 million in punitive damages and hundreds of thousands of dollars more in medical expenses.

While it's true that most if not all of the individual defendants don't have significant assets to actually pay the judgments, the assessments can and should hamper the defendants' ability to continue spreading their hatred. And the verdicts overall stand as a loud and clear warning to others that, whether Trump backers like it or not, violent racism still isn't acceptable to mainstream America.

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