When asked this past week on 60 Minutes about the violence spreading across the country in response to the election, Donald Trump was — as usual — completely clueless.
When we interviewed him on Friday afternoon Mr. Trump said he had not heard about some of the acts of violence that are popping up in his name… or against his supporters.
Nor he said had he heard about reports of racial slurs and personal threats against African Americans, Latinos and gays by some of his supporters.
Donald Trump: I am very surprised to hear that-- I hate to hear that, I mean I hate to hear that--
Lesley Stahl: But you do hear it?
Donald Trump: I don’t hear it—I saw, I saw one or two instances…
Lesley Stahl: On social media?
Donald Trump: But I think it’s a very small amount. Again, I think it’s—
Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?
Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.
Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims—
Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it-- if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it.
“Stop it” he says. That’s all, just “Stop it.”
There’s your shining beacon of hope, insipiration and moral fortitude right there. “If it helps….” he says then stares straight at the tv camera sternly and orders you like a five year old with his fingers halfway inside in the cookie dough jar to stop doing that thing you’re doing.
I’m pretty sure that’s not going to stop anything.
Within a few days of the election Raw Story had already recorded over 149 incidents while the Southern Poverty Law Center has recorded over 437 incidents including one young woman Brittany Daughenbaugh, pictured below displaying the bruises she received when two men assaulted her while claiming “Don’t you worry, honey, President Trump says this is OK.”
The Columbus Dispatch reports that student Brittany Daughenbaugh has told police that she was out for a walk and playing Pokemon Go on Thursday evening when she was accosted by two men who grabbed her by the arm.
“While these men were making the decision to violate my being, they were laughing and shouting,” Daughenbaugh wrote in a Facebook post.
“Don’t you worry, honey,” one attacker allegedly told her. “President Trump says this is OK.”
They then proceeded to punch her in the face and knock her to the ground, where she blacked out after her head hit the pavement.
But that’s far from all.
There was a group of white men who physically assaulted a black female student at Villanova while shouting “Trump Trump Trump!”
Phlly.com, the unnamed woman was walking through a SEPTA tunnel on campus — which is located north of Philadelphia in the township of Radmor — when the men attacked her.
Chanting the name of the president-elect, the men knocked the woman down, causing her to strike her head on the pavement. Her current condition is unknown and the names of the attackers have not been revealed.
A woman suffering from Lupas who was wearing a head scarf was mistaken for a Muslim wearing a hijab had her car vandalized, and was told the “Get the Fuck Out!.”
A California woman said that she received a threatening note and her car window was smashed all because her head covering was mistaken for a Muslim hijab.
Nicki Pancholy, 41, told KNTV that she has been hiking up Mission Peak in Fremont in the name of peace for the past 49 days. And on Monday, she dedicated her hike to bringing collective harmony after a brutal election season.
But when she came down from the peak, she discovered that her car window had been smashed. A note on the hood of her car suggested that the suspect mistakenly believed that she was Muslim.
“Hijab wearing bitch this is our nation now get the f— out,” the note said.
And there were these other incidents recorded by Raw Story over the first weekend following the election.
Saturday, Raw Story wrote about a teacher caught taunting a Latina student and her parents in Los Angels. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, a Muslim high school teacher received a note from her student telling her to hang herself with her own “headscarf.” The famous aren’t safe either. Trump supporters threatened and harassed some of the stars of HBO’s “Silicon Valley” at a Los Angeles bar.
Sunday, the phrase “Hang a n****r from a tree” was painted over a sign that said “equal rights.” Police are taking action against it.
Monday, Raw Story reported an incident where “Heil Trump” was painted. The vandals attacked an Indiana church with a swastika and anti-gay slur while praising Trump. We also learned on Monday that Donald Trump supporters partied in KKK garb to celebrate election, Connecticut officials said. Another incident occurred where a male Trump supporter sucker-punched a woman after a political argument. He then left the scene before police could arrive.
And to be fair there have been incidents of anti-Trump violence, but none — I would wager — are directly quoting the words and policies of his opponent as they harass and assault others. For those who still doubt that many of these incidents are directly inspired and embolded by the Trump campaign, there’s this.
A University of Georgia student told police that a man threatened to sexually assault her, justifying himself with the words of President-elect Donald Trump: “Grab them by the p*ssy.”
The Athens Banner-Herald reported on Wednesday that the UGA student said she was at a Waffle House when she heard white men in a booth behind her “making racial comments about Mexicans.”
According to the account in the police report, one of the men said that “he was going to grab (the student) by the p*ssy.”
But it’s not all just about Trump himself as we can see from incidents like this.
Andrew Provost, a Natick, Massachusetts resident posted on his Facebook over the weekend that he had received racist letters in his mailbox, apparently because Provost has Latino and black friends.
Provost wrote that he received the letters over the course of three days and that they “apparently” came from one of his neighbors on Maple street.
One of the notes was addressed to “small fella Maple 8” and warned, “1st warning.”
The note threatened, “Hey looser shortie (sic) we have just cleared the White House off (sic) n*****s!!!! Do not bring n*****s in our neighborhood — you f*ck Latinos now you f*ck n*****s. We will kill them. Natick is strictly white. Warning.”
And this.
A teacher at Baltimore, Maryland’s Harlem Park Elementary and Middle School got caught on video in an unhinged racist rant after she kicked a student out of the class.
“You’re idiots. Do you wanna be a punk-ass ni**er who’s going to get shot,” the teacher shouted. “You’re stupid! Learn something, be a man.”
And this Detroit news anchor who quit her job so she wouldn’t have to talk about “Niggers killing each other” anymore.
Lauren Podell, a local NBC news reporter in Detroit, Michigan resigned on Wednesday after word got out about her use of the n-word, BLAC Detroit reports.
Podell, 31, reportedly used the word in conversation with a co-worker and the news got out around the office this week. She said to a crew member or TV producer, “I’m tired of reporting on these n*****s killing each other in Detroit.”
And it’s not just agains Muslims and African-Americans. Not hardly.
Chuck Redding noticed an SUV tailing him after dropping off a friend, but he realized something was wrong when the dark-colored Jeep Cherokee crept closer as he turned onto his street in Sarasota, reported WFTS-TV.
The 75-year-old, who thinks he was targeted because of the pro-LGBT bumpers stickers on his car, parked in front of a neighbor’s house — and that’s when the other driver confronted him.
The man, who he described as a Hispanic man with a beard, started banging on Redding’s car window and then attacked him.
“He yanked the door open, dragged me out, ripped my shirt — I was on the pavement,” Redding said.
Redding suffered cuts, bruises and abrasions in the attack, which the assailant linked to Trump’s election.
“He kept saying, ‘You know, my new president says we can kill all you f*ggots now,'” Redding said.
Sadly, None of this should be surprising considering the fact that the FBI, even before the election, had recorded a 67% rise in hate crimes against Muslims in 2015.
Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States shot up 67 percent in 2015 to their highest levels since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to new FBI statistics.
Overall, 57 percent of the 5,850 reported incidents were motivated by race or ethnicity, while
20 percent of hate crimes were related to religious bias, the federal law enforcement agency reported on Monday.
There were 257 incidents of anti-Muslim bias in 2015, compared to 154 the previous year. The number is second only to the surge in hate crimes following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 when 481 incidents against Muslims were reported.
I think these statistics are just a fraction of what we see on the ground right now," Ibrahim Hooper, from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Al Jazeera.
"We witnessed a spark in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in late 2015, and this number increased further during Donald Trump's election campaign.
"We expect the situation to get worse in the future, based on the fact that Donald Trump had mainstreamed Islamophobia."
Donald Trump says these are just “one or two instances” of this type of thing. The FBI and the SPLC tell a different story. Facts tell a different story. And now of course, since Donald has become “President-Elect” the so-called deplorables have been even further emboldened than they were before. Last year the increase was 67%, this year it’s likely to be much more than that based on just what the SPLC has documented in just the past week and a half.
This is going to take much more than just two words to “Stop.” It’s going to take a genuine and serious commitment by Trump and the Justice and National Security team he puts together to make it clear that Hate Crimes will not be tolerated. That they will be prosecuted locally and federally to the fullest extent of the law. He needs to make it clear this behavior is Un-American, that it’s completely antithetical to our values, to our morals. This is NOT who we are. He needs to take a stand, and have a complete zero tolerance policy against hate crimes and those who would seek to spread and propagate hate speech.
Donald Trump could do that. He could take a stand, he could make it truly clear what his position is not just with a couple half-hearted words but with bold and decisive action. With direction. With commitment. With leadership.
Or...
He could hire White Nationalism purveyor Steve Bannon as his chief White House Counsel.
This is not up for debate, it’s not a matter of opinion since Bannon has already admitted his connections to alt-Right White Nationalists in the Los Angeles Times.
In that interview, Bannon did claim that not all alt-righters were racists and anti-Semites. "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right?" he said. "Maybe. Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements." But that was whitewashing. How do we know? Because of Breitbart's own coverage.
In March, the website published an article headlined "An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right," which was co-written by Milo Yiannopoulos, a prominent figure in the movement. It noted that the alt-right opposed "full 'integration'" of racial groups: "The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved." This piece cited Richard Spencer, a 30-something Duke Ph.D. dropout, and his AlternativeRight.com website as "a center of alt-right thought."
“Separation between the peoples.” Separation between the races. Segregation. Again.
And in addition to Bannon, now there’s talk of Trump bring aboard well known Islamophobe Frank Gaffney.
During his campaign, Donald Trump promised that what he lacked in government experience he would make up for by hiring “the best people” to serve on his behalf. The descriptor would seem appropriate for former Rep. Mike Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee and served as a respected member of Trump’s White House transition team until Tuesday, when he was unceremoniously fired. In his place, Trump has reportedly turned to a man of notably lesser character: Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official turned anti-Muslim fear-monger who has claimed Obama is a secret Muslim and was banned from CPAC in 2012 for attacking his fellow conservatives as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called Gaffney “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes.”
…
Gaffney, on the other hand, is more than willing to find fault with Obama and Clinton. He famously accused Obama and Clinton aide Huma Abedin of sharing sympathies with Muslim terrorists, and once called for a House committee to root out secret Muslim agents in the government, whom he claimed were plotting a “civilization jihad”. And Gaffney is no friend of Christie, either. He once accused the New Jersey governor of treason for appointing a Muslim judge. Trump’s birther claims look downright moderate in comparison.
Let me repeat this guy was so notorious he was banned from CPAC, yet now he’s potentially headed for the White House.
And then there’s Trump’s selection of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama for Attorney General when his previous confirmation as a Federal Judge was blocked because of his Racism.
The accusations mostly came from (but were not limited to) Sessions's former deputy, Thomas Figures. He sent a letter to the Senate and reporters claiming his boss said insensitive things about black people, at times directly to him.
Figures, who is black, said Sessions told him to be careful about what he said ''to white folks” after Figures got into a heated argument with a white colleague. And Figures testified Sessions called him “boy” on multiple occasions.
Figures also said Sessions had joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought its members were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.”
A Justice Department lawyer, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had described the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union as “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.”
And then there’s Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, the architect of SB1070 parts of which were found unconstitutional, who has advocated for a Muslim Registry.
It feels like ancient history now but late last year then-presidential candidate Donald Trump kicked up a massive controversy by endorsing the idea of a “database” for Muslims within the country as a means for fighting terrorism. This was one of the first planks in Trump’s national security platform, which is characterized by a consistent eagerness to disregard civil liberties and human rights in the pursuit of safety.
His plans to aggressively use immigration laws to thwart terrorism eventually received its own slogan: “extreme vetting.” Now that Trump is actually going to be president, someone will have to oversee and implement this draconian measure.
That brings us to one of the newest members of the Trump transition team, the wildly anti-immigrant Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who told Reuters that a Muslim “registry” is indeed in the works. Kobach is apparently mulling the resurrection of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, a 2002 program that he helped design and implement while working at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. That program was both discriminatory and ineffective, and bringing it back wouldn’t accomplish much beyond making the lives of Muslims in America that much more difficult.
I’ve heard it said that Trump opponents took him literally but not seriously, while his supporters took him seriously but not literally. Consequently many people who voted for Donald Trump argue that he didn’t mean it literally when he said he wanted a "total complete ban of all Muslims entering the US.” and he didn't mean anything negative or insulting when he said to black people that they “walk out their front door and get shot” and he didn't mean it literally when he said he could “grab [women] by the pussy.”
They claim none of that has had any impact at all. None of that was literal. There really aren’t any people going around repeating his. exact. words. while committing acts of intimidation, vandalism and assault.
Except that there are.
And I for one take seriously and literally the hiring of Steve Bannon, which has already been followed by a steady stream of propaganda normalizing and white-washing of his involvement in producing reams of bigoted material on the media website where he was the CEO, where he hired the staff and paid for all the content. That decision, putting someone with Bannon or documented Islamophobes like Gaffney and Gen. Michael Flynn as head of the NSC a man who had proven so erratic and deranged he was fired from his position as head of Defense Intelligence and is currently a lobbyist for Turkey within even 100 miles of the Oval Office, let alone Senator Jeff Sessions who was blocked from becoming a Federal Judge because of his displays of racism and has since cheered the gutting of the Voting Rights Act as Attorney General, tells you exactly what you need to know.
Meanwhile, Trump says he wants to be the President of “all America” and that he wants to “bring us all together.”
Yeah, well — I think we can easily tell that what Donald Trump really means when he claims “Stop It” and all the rest on the one hand then puts a documented White Nationalist in the highest non-Senate confirmed position in the government and takes advice from a guy who thinks the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated CPAC, along with Flynn, Sessions and Kobach on the other hand.
With this array of bigots, racist and out-and-out Islamophobes as part of Trump’s senior staff, advisors and cabinet — we now know exactly what he means to “Stop”.
Nothing.