Why Won't Trump Denounce Neo-Nazis?

All Twitter is abuzz with the question -- why won'd Donald Trump condemn the neo-Nazis in Charlotteville, Virginia?  He has consistently fudged the question, first giving a general denunciation of hate and violence "on all sides" but refused specific questions on the subject.  Then a White House spokesman denounced white supremacists and neo-Nazis on Trump's behalf but couldn't get the President to put his name on it.

The neo-Nazis recognized the coded message for what it was:

Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. 

He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate … on both sides! 

So he implied the antifa are haters. 

There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. 

He said he loves us all.

 And, it should be noted, this is an established pattern with Trump.  During the election, he refused to dissociate himself from David Duke.  On Holocaust Remembrance Day, he issued a statement not even mentioning Jews.  And while at first some were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, chalking it up to inexperience, his staff made clear that the omission was intentional.

So, why?  Certainly he would pay no political price for renouncing neo-Nazis.  Republican politicians everywhere did it.  Vice President Pence and many Cabinet members denounced them.  Even Trump's water carriers in the right wing media (at least its more mainstream portions) denounced the outbreak.

Fox New ran the headline, "Neo-Nazi Website Praises Trump Response," followed by their verbatim quote.  The Drudge Report ran the headline, "Make America Hate Again."

Neo-Nazis are negligible as a voting bloc.  The vast majority of Americans would probably never even notice whether Trump included Jews in his statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day.  And the vast majority of those who did notice would respond with outrage.  Neo-Nazis probably count for even less among donors than among voters.

As for Trump's base, they are very sensitive about being called racist.  They interpreted Obama's "bitter clingers" remark, not merely as patronizing and offensive, but as outright hate because it accused them of racism.  And as for Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment, the less said the better.  But that is all the more reason why Trump supporters would want nothing to do with neo-Nazis -- because those are the real racists and deplorables and they don't want to be sullied by the association.  Yes, it seems fair to say that the constituency for neo-Nazis in this country is too small to be politically significant and that Trump would gain a whole lot more than he would lose by denouncing them.

So why won't he.  I can only see one possible reason why he would be willing to pay the political price of associate with neo-Nazis.  He agrees with them.