Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes

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

Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes

By Ayal Feinberg, Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers

March 22 at 7:45 AM

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.

https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/21/these-4-factors-trigger-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-in-the-u-s/

How we did our research

Using the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism, Terrorism map data (HEAT map), we examined whether there was a correlation between the counties that hosted one of Trump’s 275 presidential campaign rallies in 2016 and increased incidents of hate crimes in subsequent months.

https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map

To test this, we aggregated hate-crime incident data and Trump rally data to the county level and then used statistical tools to estimate a rally’s impact. We included controls for factors such as the county’s crime rates, its number of active hate groups, its minority populations, its percentage with college educations, its location in the country and the month when the rallies occurred.

We found that counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally.

Of course, our analysis cannot be certain it was Trump’s campaign rally rhetoric that caused people to commit more hate crimes in the host county. However, suggestions that this effect can be explained through a plethora of faux hate crimes are at best unrealistic. In fact, this charge is frequently used as a political tool to dismiss concerns about hate crimes. Research shows it is far more likely that hate crime statistics are considerably lower because of underreporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/fake-hate-crimes.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/02/23/an-orchestrated-attack-against-truth-how-clash-over-hate-crimes-has-become-one-more-culture-war/?utm_term=.fdabd8a69b48
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/cdozo37&div=56&id=&page=

Additionally, it is hard to discount a “Trump effect” when a considerable number of these reported hate crimes reference Trump. According to the ADL’s 2016 data, these incidents included vandalism, intimidation and assault.

https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map?s=eyJpZGVvbG9naWVzIjpbXSwiaW5jaWRlbnRzIjpbXSwieWVhciI6WzIwMTYsMjAxNl19

What’s more, according to the FBI’s Universal Crime report in 2017, reported hate crimes increased 17 percent over 2016. Recent research also shows that reading or hearing Trump’s statements of bias against particular groups makes people more likely to write offensive things about the groups he targets.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime
http://www.ashford.zone/images/2018/09/followtheracist_v2.pdf

[Donald Trump is a symbol of white identity politics in Europe, too.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/06/21/donald-trump-is-a-symbol-of-white-identity-politics-in-europe-too

Ayal Feinberg is a PhD candidate in political science at University of North Texas.

Regina Branton is a professor of political science at the University of North Texas.

Valerie Martinez-Ebers is a professor of political science and director of Latina/o and Mexican American Studies at the University of North Texas.