Hate Crimes Continue With No Comment From Our President-Elect

We are now almost one month out from the Presidential election that was won by a racist xenophobic bully. In the immediate aftermath of the election, it was hardly surprising, although certainly disturbing, to see an outbreak of hate crimes as the winners “celebrated” their victory. But, rather than subsiding as election euphoria wore off, the hatred and violence actually seems to be increasing. Just off the top of my head I can list a handful of hate crimes that occurred in the last few days. An off-duty Muslim police officer was threatened by a man with his pit bull and told to “go back to your country”. A transit police officer was pushed down a staircase and accused of being a terrorist. Both were women and both were simply wearing hijabs. Even more shocking, these attacks both occurred in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the country. In North Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan held a motorized “victory” parade through the town of Roxboro, shouting “white power!” and displaying Confederate battle flags. In New York City alone, there has been a 35% increase in hate crimes over the last year and, since the election, the number of hate crimes is double the same period last year. In 2015, the FBI reported that hate crimes against Muslims surged 67%.

The silence on this subject from the President-elect and his transition has been pretty deafening. Other than one interview a week after the election where he claimed not to know that there was surge in hate crimes, something quite probably true considering his broad ignorance, he simply said, “stop it.” But it is also true that Obama has also been relatively silent on the matter, although that may be because any statement from him will probably only increase the violence. Somewhere in the blogosphere, and I unfortunately can’t find the reference now, I read an interesting take on the continued resentment of Trump voters despite having won the election. I think that is playing itself out in these incidents where Trump voters essentially need to lord their victory over others, fed by his campaign of racism and xenophobia. That is also why his tweet about how the votes of millions of illegals allowed Hillary to win the popular vote had such resonance with his supporters – they are tired of having their views considered in the “minority” and the election was a way to show the elites and the liberals they need to be “respected”. Yes, it is most definitely racism and xenophobia but, to paraphrase the insight from Professor Samuel Goldman, it is also a reflection of the insecurity of a minority that is just big enough and powerful enough to believe it is a majority.