There have been numerous stories of hate incidents following Donald Trump’s election, a number of which are proving to have been hoaxes. I cited one of them here yesterday which explains why this is an analysis blog rather than a news blog. As Sam Clemens said, a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
At Reason, no friend of Donald Trump’s, Elizabeth Nolan Brown catalogues some of them:
The first one to really go viral involved a Muslim female student at the University of Louisiana who claimed to have had her hijab ripped off and her wallet stolen the day after Trump’s election by two white men wearing Trump hats. But on Thursday, local police announced that the young woman had admitted she fabricated the story. “This incident is no longer under investigation,” the Lafayette Police Department said in a press release.
In another incident, this one in San Diego, a young Muslim woman’s purse and car were stolen by one white male and one Hispanic male. While the men allegedly made negative comments about Muslims, it seems car stealing was more their motivation than harassment or intimidation—which is obviously shitty, but not necessarily a Trump-inspired act of bigotry.
And an alleged incident of a gay man named Chris Ball getting beaten up by Trump supporters in Santa Monica on election night seems to have not happened the way it was initially recounted, if the incident even happened at all. The Santa Monica Police Department posted a message to Facebook Thursday saying that neither the department nor city officials had “received any information indicating this crime occurred in the City of Santa Monica” and “a check of local hospitals revealed there was no victim of any such incident admitted or treated.”
Other instances of “Trump inspired” violence and vandalism have also turned out to be hoaxes or misinterpretations. An alleged Ku Klux Klan rally in honor of Trump’s victory turned out to be an old photo of conservatives carrying U.S., Gadsden, and Christian flags that were billowing out in a manner mistaken in a grainy photo for Klan robes. There were no Southern Illinois University students posting blackface selfies to social media after Trump’s win.
A Nazi flag that went up over a home in San Francisco Wednesday wasn’t a show of support for anti-Jewish sentiment but “a comment on our new president-elect,” according to the anti-Trump resident who put it up. “I am hoping people get that this is a political statement, and that I’m not a Nazi supporter.”
I think that Donald Trump’s obnoxious over-the-top rhetoric is repellent. It’s one of the many reasons I didn’t vote for him. I think it’s darned hard to be a president for all of the people when you’re slamming a good portion of them in a way that’s at best offensive and at worst hateful.
We need to start reflecting on just who is creating a climate of hatred and fear? Is it Donald Trump and his supporters, his opponents who lie about attacks on them or both?
Meanwhile, there have been anti-Trump riots, and at least a couple of beating that were filmed by the people doing to beatings, which they then, naturally, posted to social media.
But of course, the real fascists are the ones getting beat up and having their businesses set on fire.
Here in Chicago we’ve had an incident where a man was beaten up simply because he was white and in the wrong neighborhood and it was blamed on Trump. IMO there’s a lot being done right now to foster a climate of hate and it should stop. President Obama and Sec. Clinton should condemn the attacks. Failure to do so is condoning violence.
Turn down the heat. It will not benefit Democrats or blacks, Hispanics, or Muslims.
Turn down the heat. It will not benefit Democrats or blacks, Hispanics, or Muslims.
It’s not meant to benefit any of them. It’s meant to benefit the very tippy-top of the ruling class. Divide and conquer, in British colonial style.
Thanks for including the President and Secretary Clinton in your comments section. It’s worth noting that the rhetoric was over the top on both sides. Trump was obnoxious and yes sometimes even hateful, but let’s not forget the “basket of deplorables” and the epithets with which she labeled Trump supporters. Neither Trump nor Clinton is without blame for creating a climate of hate, which is one reason I voted for neither. As you said, all parties need to do what they can to reduce tensions and then let time heal the wounds.
This started at the top. Let’s not forget Trump encouraging his supporters to beat up protestors. That he offered to pay their legal fees. I am sure this has happened before in US history, but not recently. Once this stuff starts, it is hard to stop. I have no use for those engaging in violent protest (and think the peaceful ones of this are just stupid). They should be jailed, but if we want to talk about creating a climate of fear and violence, let’s not forget root causes.
Steve
steve:
I am in no way defending Trump and he contributed mightily to the present situation.
The initial story Dave linked to was interesting because the events were taking place at colleges, curious because of the usual presence of speech codes, but also the risk of hoaxes and performance art. By the time, I looked into it, the San Diego State story was identified as a hoax, but an incident at San Jose University involving a woman being choked with her hijab. At the same time, the San Jose media was reporting that a high school girl in the area was beaten up by another student for supporting Trump.
OTOH, the only time I’ve been the victim of a violent crime was on a university campus by university students, so I suppose it shouldn’t be shocking to me that young people can be violent, influenced by the dynamics of the crowd and prone to dramatic-emotional reasoning. It would be easy to blame the media for the state of affairs, but the media is kind of a soft target and becoming irrelevant as much as anything.
Steve, let’s not forget that the Clinton campaign and the DNC were arranging for violence to occur at Trump rallies.
Dave- I understand that, and not saying you are. My point is that when you have one of the two candidates publicly advocating violence, you kind of expect to have violence. You have to think it might have made a difference if he had cut that off right away, but then he probably doesn’t get elected since his voters loved the tough guy act.
ice- O’Keefe is a serial liar who has edited all of his other tapes to show things that really didn’t happen. You are welcome to believe him if you want. However, you are equating low level campaign people with the actual candidate. Not quite the same.
Steve
Robert Creamer is not a “low level campaign” person. He and his wife, Congressional Rep. Jan Schakowski, are big noises among progressives.
It would be like calling Paul Pelosi a low level person and completely detached from the campaign. It can’t be done.
Never heard of him. Not inclined to believe anything from O’Keefe anyway.
Steve
“Never heard of him. Not inclined to believe anything from O’Keefe anyway.”
Shorter: don’t bother me with the facts.
Shorter Drew. I don’t care if the guy always alters the “facts”.
Steve