7175 hate crimes last year up from 6121 in 2016. just getting the data just weeks after pittsburgh. these anti-semitic attacks. the shootings. all of this stuff. what is going on? is it the political climate? i definitely think the political climate has a ton to do with it, don, but i was thinking right before i came on air about it about a 2010 piece i wrote called words matter. and it was about barack obama s second term and the fact that even in west virginia at that time there was a white man, a felon who ran against him in the democratic primary and almost won. it was amazing to me in that moment how much racism had really trickled into the political process. and of course we know that at that point donald trump had started and was the spokesperson at least of the birther movement. so we know exactly what wetric does and how dangerous that rhetoric can become. and we re seeing we re
thinking right before i came on air about it about a 2010 piece i wrote called words matter. and it was about barack obama s second term and the fact that even in west virginia at that time there was a white man, a felon who ran against him in the democratic primary and almost won. it was amazing to me in that moment how much racism had really trickled into the political process. and of course we know that at that point donald trump had started and was the spokesperson at least of the birther movement. so we know exactly what wetric does and how dangerous that rhetoric can become. and we re seeing we re eyewitnesses to that every single day. i want to bring in scott jennings now. scott, anti-semitic hate crimes went up 37% last year. do you think it s a coincidence that we saw a spike in anti-semitic crimes the very same year that president trump said nazis marching in charlottesville were very fine people? i don t like to draw links like that because i don t think you can blam