On the heels of two gruesome shootings — one in El Paso, Texas, and the other just hours ago in Dayton, Ohio — the accusation game has begun.
For many, the No. 1 culprit is, of course, President Donald Trump. Presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said, “There is a complicity in the president’s hatred that undermines the goodness and decency of the American people, regardless of party. To say nothing in a time of rising hatred is not enough to say, ‘I am not a hate monger.’ If you are not actively working against hate, not calling it out, you are complicit in what is happening.” Booker was mayor of Newark, New Jersey, where in 2013—his final year in office—the city’s murder rate was the third-highest of any major U.S. city. It’s strenuous to attribute that to Trump, who didn’t take office until January 2017.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke also blamed Trump, whom he deemed a “white nationalist.” O’Rourke said, “We have to recognize the hate, the open racism that we see. … We see that in our commander in chief, and he encourages it. He doesn’t just tolerate it, he encourages it.” Indeed, a 2018 Quinnipiac University poll found that 55 percent of voters believe that “President Trump has emboldened people who hold racist views to publicly express those beliefs.”
But is it true?
University of Pennsylvania political science professor Daniel Hopkins and research assistant Samantha Washington, the authors of the working paper, said they began their study expecting to confirm what Trump’s critics and they themselves believe: that Trump is “normalizing” racist expressions and that white racism against blacks and Latinos is on the rise. “As a political leader, Donald Trump has used racist rhetoric to build political support,” they write. “Throughout his campaign and his first few years in office, Donald Trump has consistently defied contemporary norms by using overt, negative rhetoric against ethnic/racial minorities. Did this rhetoric lead white Americans to hold more prejudiced views of African Americans or Latinos, either through the normalization of prejudice or through other mechanisms?”
But the authors, surprised by their own conclusions, stated: “Our findings contradict both hypotheses, because we found primarily a decrease in racial prejudice and resentment, certainly not an increase.” Hopkins wrote: “Measuring prejudice is notoriously difficult, but we were able to use a panel study in which the same group of people was asked questions about political issues 13 times since late 2007. Our panel asked respondents—a representative sample of about 500 white Americans—to repeatedly rate the work ethic and trustworthiness of different racial groups.”
“On average, anti-black prejudice fell sharply among whites, from … just before the 2016 election to … two years later,” the article says. “That was the lowest level of anti-black prejudice since we first conducted this survey in late 2008. Anti-Latino prejudice also fell. … In both cases, the declines were larger among Democrats, but they also occurred among Republicans.”
The media and Democrats have focused more attention on the El Paso shooting than on the Dayton shooting. The El Paso shooting was certainly deadlier — 22 dead compared to nine in Dayton. But a key reason Trump’s critics have focused more attention on El Paso is that the shooter posted an online manifesto that he apparently wrote himself, railing against “an invasion of Latinos,” “open borders,” and “free health care for illegal immigrants.” But he also wrote that he had felt that way years before Trump, and that any attempt to link his actions to Trump would be “fake news.” The manifesto read: “Some people will blame the president or some presidential candidates for the attack. They are not.”
Less compelling to the Trump-blaming crowd are the words of the Dayton shooter, a self-described “leftist” who tweeted in June 2019, “I want socialism and I’m not waiting for idiots to finally understand.” In November 2018, he tweeted, “Vote blue, for God’s sake.” On the day Senator McCain died, he tweeted, “Fuck John McCain.” In December, he tweeted, “This is America: Guns on every corner, guns in every home, no freedom except to kill.” On the day of the Parkland, Florida, shooting, he tweeted to Ohio Senator Robb Portman, “Hey Rob. How much did they pay you to turn a blind eye? 17 kids are dead. If not now, when?” He also made it clear that he favors Sen. Elizabeth Warren over Sen. Kamala Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential race. He tweeted, “No, but only because Harris is a cop — I’d happily vote for Warren.”
By all means, let us investigate the motives and means of these killers so that we may reduce the likelihood of further such shootings and reduce their lethality. But blaming Trump is inactive, dishonest, and bigoted.
