Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

2018 Hate Crimes Down

—

by

James A. Bacon
in , ,

Looks like Attorney General Mark Herring will have to come up with a new campaign theme in his run for governor.  It’s bad enough that he got caught up in the blackface scandal. Now the central premise of his campaign launch — that the nation was in the grip of a surge of white supremacist violence — rings more hollow than ever.

The Virginia State Police has issued its 2018 Crime in Virginia report, and sadly for Herring (but good for the rest of us), the number of reported hate crimes was only 161 — down from 202 the previous year. The number of anti-black hate crimes fell to 62 from 68 the previous year.

The 2017 hate crime surge hyped by Herring turned out to be a blip in a long-term decline. The fact is, despite the best effort of politicians to stir up racial grievances, Americans and Virginians get along pretty well with one another.

Update: I updated some of these numbers when I returned from vacation and re-gained access to a PC.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

5 responses to “2018 Hate Crimes Down”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    So we KNOW the Dems are going to push these buttons! What is the GOP going to offer Virginians as a better path?

    See that’s the problem. When your whole theme is how despicable the Dems are – what demographics are you
    appealing to?

    Of course, one could turn this around and ask the same questions about the Dems but the Dems also so they want better/more healthcare, education, transportation, etc.

    The GOP these days are your classic “get off my damn lawn” types and “give me my taxes back and stop mollycoddling malingering welfare suckers…and misbehaving high school miscreants!

  2. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    Those themes worked for Trump in 2016, Larry – might again. I’m not sure promising everybody everything under the sun for free is a much higher plane of political discourse….This is going to be just awful, the next year or so.

  3. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Trump won in 2016 because white voters who had previously voted for Obama refused to vote for Clinton and switched to Trump. Maybe calling them despicables wasn’t such a good move. Nor is saying to middle America, you need to shut up and pay higher taxes cuz we want to give away everything to everybody but you for free.

    1. spencer Avatar
      spencer

      The word was deplorable. She said 1/2 of his supporters were. If a person considers themselves a part of that 1/2 , then they probably are deplorable. It wouldn’t upset you if your heart was pure. From the reaction it got, her math was off. Seems like the basket that supported Trump was nearly 100% deplorable.

      Anyone who turns a message of fairness and equality into an attack against themselves has a guiltly conscience.

  4. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    Senator Kamala Harris’s ancestors owned slaves. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/07/kamalas-kase.php

    I guess she should personally make amends. Perhaps by resigning from office so that the Governor can appoint an African American to her seat.

Leave a Reply

Read More