By Robert Reich
On Friday, a gunman killed three
at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. Later, in explaining his motive to
the police, he said “no more
baby parts.”
Last Monday, gunmen opened fire on Black Lives Matter
protesters in Minneapolis who were demanding action against two white
Minneapolis police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, 24,
an unarmed black man, on Nov. 15.
Evidence shows the accused shooters were linked to
white supremacist organizations operating online.
Meanwhile, the FBI reports an upturn in threats on
mosques and Muslims in the United States.
In Connecticut, police are investigating reports of multiple gunshots fired at
a local mosque. Two Tampa Bay-area mosques in Florida received threatening phone messages.
One of the calls threatened a firebombing.
In an Austin suburb, leaders of the Islamic Center of
Pflugerville discovered feces and torn pages of the Qur’an.
Hate crimes will never be eliminated entirely. A small
number of angry, deranged people inevitably will vent their rage at groups they
find threatening. Some will do so violently.
But this doesn’t absolve politicians who have been
fueling such hatefulness.
Carly Fiorina continues to allege, for example, that
Planned Parenthood is selling body parts of fetuses.
Although the claim has been proven baseless, it’s been
repeated not only by Fiorina but also by other candidates. Mike Huckabee calls it “sickening” that “we give these butchers
money to harvest human organs.”
Even in the wake of Friday’s Colorado shootings, Donald
Trump referred to videos “with some of these people
from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car.”
Some candidates are also fomenting animus toward Muslims.
Huckabee says he’d “like for Barack Obama to resign
if he’s not going to protect America and instead protect the image of Islam.”
Ben Carson says allowing Syrian refugees into the
United States is analogous to exposing a neighborhood to a “rabid dog.”
Last September Carson said he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in
charge of this nation.”
Since the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris earlier
this month, Trump has advocated registering
all Muslims in the United States and putting American mosques under
surveillance.
He’s also claimed that Muslim-Americans in New Jersey
celebrated by the “thousands” when the World Trade Center was destroyed on
September 11, 2001, although there’s no evidence to back that claim.
Indeed, much of Trump’s campaign is built on hatefulness.
And Trump not only fails to condemn violence he provokes but finds excuses for
it.
After a handful of white supporters recently punched and
attempted to choke a Black Lives Matter protester at one of his campaign
rallies, Trump said “maybe he should have been roughed
up.”
Trump began his campaign last June by falsely alleging Mexican
immigrants are “bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Weeks later in Boston, two brothers beat with a metal
poll and urinated on a 58-year-old homeless Mexican national. They subsequently told the police “Donald Trump was right,
all these illegals need to be deported.“
But instead of condemning that brutality, Trump excused
it bysaying “people who are following me are very
passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great
again.”
I’m not suggesting Trump, Carson, Fiorina, or any other
presidential candidate is directly to blame for hate crimes erupting across
America.
But by virtue of their standing as presidential
candidates, their words carry particular weight. They have a responsibility to
calm people with the truth rather than stir them up with lies.
In suggesting that the staff of Planned Parenthood,
Muslims, Black Lives Matter protesters, and Mexican immigrants are guilty of
venal acts, these candidates are fanning the flames of hate.
This itself is despicable.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor
of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow
at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the
Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers “Aftershock, “The Work of Nations,"
and"Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His film, INEQUALITY FOR ALL is
available on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon. His new book, "SAVING CAPITALISM:
For the Many, Not the Few" is out 9/29.
