The Trump Effect on Hate Crimes: Academic Studies and FBI Data Documented Increases in Hate Crimes Correlated with Trump's Rhetoric and Rallies
Tier 4Documented2015-06-16 to 2021-01-20
Factual Summary
Multiple academic studies and federal law enforcement statistics documented significant increases in hate crimes in the United States during and after Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency. While the relationship between political rhetoric and hate crimes involves complex causation, the body of evidence is substantial enough that researchers have identified what they call the "Trump Effect" on hate-motivated violence.
A peer-reviewed study published in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics by Ayal Feinberg, Regina Branton, and Valerie Martinez-Ebers found that counties that hosted a Trump campaign rally in 2016 experienced a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes compared to similar counties that did not host rallies. The study, titled "The Trump Effect: How 2016 Campaign Rallies Explain Spikes in Hate," used Anti-Defamation League data and controlled for population size, poverty rates, and other demographic variables. The researchers concluded that "Trump's rhetoric may have emboldened individuals who harbored racial or xenophobic attitudes to act on them."
FBI Uniform Crime Report data showed that reported hate crimes increased from 5,850 incidents in 2015 to 6,121 in 2016, the year of Trump's campaign, and continued rising to 7,175 in 2017, Trump's first year in office. By 2019, hate crimes had reached 7,314 reported incidents, representing a nearly 20 percent increase over Trump's presidency compared to the year before his campaign. The Southern Poverty Law Center documented that anti-Semitic incidents increased 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016, and anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 91 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to the corresponding period the prior year.
The Brookings Institution published a comprehensive analysis of the data, noting that while hate crime reporting methodologies changed during this period, the magnitude and consistency of the increases across multiple data sources and categories of bias were difficult to attribute solely to improved reporting. The analysis concluded that Trump's campaign and presidency coincided with "a genuine increase in bigoted acts."
A study published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences examined whether Trump's presidency "reshaped Americans' prejudices," finding evidence that the social norms constraining the expression of prejudice weakened during his time in office. The researchers documented a measurable increase in people's willingness to express racially prejudiced views in surveys, suggesting that Trump's rhetoric shifted the perceived social acceptability of bigotry.
Primary Sources
1. Feinberg, Branton, and Martinez-Ebers, "The Trump Effect: How 2016 Campaign Rallies Explain Spikes in Hate," PS: Political Science and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2019
2. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Hate Crime Statistics: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
3. Southern Poverty Law Center, Hate Crime Data Reports, 2016-2020
4. Trendsetter study: "Did Donald Trump's presidency reshape Americans' prejudices?," Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2022
Corroborating Sources
1. Brookings Institution: "Trump and racism: What do the data say?," August 2020
2. The Hill: "Hate crimes rose by 226 percent in counties where Trump hosted campaign rallies in 2016: study," March 2019
3. Newsweek: "Hate Crimes Under Trump Surged Nearly 20 Percent Says FBI Report," November 2020
4. Georgetown University Repository: "Expanding on the Trump Effect: How Trump Campaign Rallies Are Associated with Hate," 2019
5. Civil Rights Leadership Conference: "New Report: Reported Hate Crimes Increase During Elections," 2020
Counterarguments and Context
Several important caveats apply to the research. A conflicting study by Harvard PhD candidates Matthew Lilley and Brian Wheaton argued that there is no statistically significant correlation between Trump rallies and hate crime increases, contending that the Feinberg study's methodology was flawed because it did not adequately account for pre-existing trends in hate crime reporting. The Reason Foundation published an analysis cautioning against drawing causal conclusions from the rally data. FBI hate crime data is also limited by voluntary reporting: many law enforcement agencies do not participate, and changes in the number of participating agencies can affect year-over-year comparisons. It is also possible that increased public awareness of hate crimes during the Trump era led to higher reporting rates rather than a higher actual incidence of hate-motivated conduct. Trump denied promoting hatred or violence and characterized his rhetoric as focused on law enforcement and border security rather than racial animus. However, the convergence of multiple independent data sources, including FBI statistics, ADL records, academic studies, and attitudinal surveys, pointing in the same direction over a sustained period provides a substantial body of evidence that hate crimes increased during the Trump era. The academic debate concerns the precision of the causal mechanism, not the direction of the trend.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 4 because the evidence is drawn from academic research, FBI statistics, and investigative analysis rather than from adjudicated legal proceedings. The entry documents the correlation between Trump's political activity and increases in hate crimes without asserting direct causation, which remains a subject of legitimate academic debate. The significance of the evidence lies in its breadth: FBI data, ADL tracking, peer-reviewed research, and attitudinal surveys all point to a measurable increase in hate-motivated conduct during Trump's political ascendancy. The entry is careful to note the competing study and the limitations of hate crime data, because intellectual honesty requires acknowledging where the evidence is contested.