The hate divide: Hate crimes are up, up, up and Trump supporters want to deny, deny, deny
If a hate crime occurs in America and a Trump supporter doesn’t see it, did it even happen?
The evidence suggests that, denial by President-elect Donald Trump and his fans notwithstanding, the answer is yes. In the first five days after last Tuesday’s election, the Southern Poverty Law Center received reports of 437 hate crimes across the country. Two hundred and fifty of those were reported in the first two days alone, which is more than the center sees in the typical six-month span.
In addition, the FBI announced on Monday that it recorded 5,818 hate crimes in 2015, a 6 percent increase over the previous year. And this is at a time when the overall crime rate in the country, despite what a majority of people might think, has actually decreased.
Given the angry tone and tenor of the election and the fact that the winning candidate did most of his campaigning by putting on rallies that even Leni Riefenstahl might have thought were a tad much, it seems a good bet that much of the inspiration for this wave of hate crimes can be laid at the feet of our new, orange obergruppenfuhrer, Donald Trump.
The evidence is pretty solid. Over the course of his 17-month campaign, Trump disparaged and threatened minorities, blaming Muslims and Hispanics in particular for a host of our country’s ills. He portrayed this blame game as some sort of national emergency, telling his followers, “We don’t have time to be politically correct.” He gleefully cheered when protestors, who were often black or Hispanic, were manhandled and occasionally beaten while the police were removing them from his rallies.
More http://www.salon.com/2016/11/17/the-hate-divide-hate-crimes-are-up-up-up-and-trump-supporters-want-to-deny-deny-deny/