Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Just now on Morning Joe - Counties hosting Trump rallies in 2016

show 226% increase in hate crimes then cities that didn't host one of his rallies.

Subtitle this "Inciting the Torch and Pitchfork Knuckle Scraping Rubes."

Also reported in Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/trumps-rhetoric-does-inspire-more-hate-crimes/?noredirect=on

There is suggestive evidence that Trump’s rhetoric matters.



President Trump hugs an American flag at the Conservative Political Action Conference annual meeting at National Harbor near Washington, D.C., on March 2. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)


By Ayal Feinberg, Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers
March 22

During an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” this past Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) lambasted President Trump for emboldening white nationalism after a young man killed at least 50 people at two New Zealand mosques. Kaine was referring to Trump’s answer after a reporter asked whether he sees "today that white nationalism is a rising threat around the world?” Trump responded, “I don’t really.”

This is not the first time Trump has been accused of catering to white nationalists after a terrorist attack. At an August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, a young white man rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer. Afterward, Trump insisted that “there’s blame on both sides” for the violence.

Then in October 2018, a gunman killed 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. When Trump announced plans to visit the synagogue, many people in Squirrel Hill, the city’s predominantly Jewish neighborhood, took to the streets demanding first that Trump renounce white nationalism before paying his respects to the victims.

Trump has strongly rejected any charges that he’s to blame, tweeting Monday:

The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019
Our research finds that Kaine could be correct, however: Trump’s rhetoric may encourage hate crimes, as we explain below.

[The daily use of Gab is climbing. Which talker is likely to become as violent as the Pittsburgh shooter?]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/29/the-daily-use-of-gab-is-climbing-which-talker-might-become-as-violent-as-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-gunman/?utm_term=.944c547439ec

Does Trump’s political rhetoric have a measurable link to reported hate crime and extremist activity?

We examined this question, given that so many politicians and pundits accuse Trump of emboldening white nationalists. White nationalist leaders seem to agree, as leaders including Richard Spencer and David Duke have publicly supported Trump’s candidacy and presidency, even if they still criticize him for not going far enough. The New Zealand shooter even referred to Trump as a “renewed symbol of white identity.”

So, do attitudes like these have real world consequences? Recent research on far-right groups suggests that they do, especially when these attitudes are embraced and encourage by peers. Specifically, the quantity of neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups active in a state leads to increased reports of hate crimes within that state.