Last summer, we introduced the “Trump Hate Map” – a comprehensive look at the locations and events where Latinos, immigrants, and other people of color have been harassed or attacked by Trump or his supporters. We noted that, to a degree unprecedented in recent American political history, Trump and his campaign’s dangerous blend of nativism, demagoguery, and authoritarianism were bleeding into civil society to dangerous effect and fostering a climate that demonized and dehumanized Latinos and other non-whites.
Just in the past few days: at a Trump event at Radford University in Virginia, Trump asked a protester, “Are you from Mexico?” New video shows black students at Valdosta State University in Georgia being ejected from a Trump rally, supposedly at the candidate’s request, despite the students not having engaged in any form of protest. And at high school basketball games in both Iowa and Indiana, white students in attendance chanted “Trump! Trump!” and “Build a wall! Build a wall!” at Latino players from the opposing teams.
This doesn’t even include the high-profile incident yesterday in which a Secret Service agent at a Trump event in Virginia threw a Time Magazine photographer to the ground in a vicious altercation. And all of these events and incidents follow on the heels of Trump’s refusal to disavow the KKK and David Duke and arrive in the midst of a sustained focus on Trump’s support from leading white nationalist and anti-immigrant leaders.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “Worries about the dangerous implications of mainstreaming Trump’s vision for America are not based on speculation, but on a sustained and disturbing array of actual events. Unfortunately, we continue to have a steady flow of new updates to the Trump Hate Map.”
