Politics of Hate
The "Politics of Hate" refers to a political strategy that employs coded language to evoke fear and manipulate voter anxieties, particularly among White populations, without direct references to overt racism. This approach gained prominence during the 1968 presidential primaries with figures like George Wallace, who capitalized on the concerns of urban, blue-collar White citizens amidst expanding Black communities. Politicians such as Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush later adopted similar tactics, focusing on themes of law and order, and crime, often linking these issues with race indirectly. The strategy has evolved, with both liberal and conservative campaigns utilizing targeted attack ads and rhetoric to exploit fears around immigration, terrorism, and social changes. The rise of Donald Trump marked a significant resurgence of hate politics, as he framed issues through a lens of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, leading to increased hate crimes and incidents following his election. The Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations have documented a troubling rise in hate groups and violence, particularly affecting Black and LGBTQ+ communities. Overall, the politics of hate illustrates a troubling intersection of political discourse and social fear, highlighting the ongoing challenges of race relations in the United States.
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Politics of Hate
The politics of hate uses the “language of hate,” the code words that politicians and other public officials use in place of overtly racist language, to manipulate White voters’ anxieties and gain their votes.
Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace pioneered the politics of hate approach during the 1968 presidential primaries, when his fiery rhetoric received substantial support in Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland. More mainstream politicians realized that Wallace had substantial appeal to urban, blue-collar White citizens who lived in areas adjacent to expanding Black communities and who felt that their interests were being subordinated to those of Black Americans. Presenting himself as a populist fighting against elitist, hypocritical liberals, Wallace associated his approach with anticommunist rhetoric, reformulated his defense of segregation as a stand for states’ rights, and derided the federal government’s efforts at busing to promote integration of the public schools, specifically condemning the US Supreme Court.
Since Wallace, other politicians have used similar strategies to galvanize and direct voters on the basis of fear without appealing directly to racism. During the 1968 campaign, Richard Nixon avoided direct mention of race, while promising to restore “law and order” and “local control” of schools. Blaming “permissive,” “indulgent,” liberal policies for student antiwar uprisings, urban riots, and the creation of a “criminal” class of the “hardcore unemployed” financed by “middle-class” tax dollars, he linked race and disorder.
The effectiveness of George H. W. Bush’s 1988 campaign strategy demonstrated how deeply racist narratives still permeated the nation. Trailing Michael Dukakis in polls, Bush resorted to a series of advertisements focused on Willie Horton, a Black felon, who raped a White woman while on furlough. The Bush campaign thereby manipulated the tendency of much of the president’s constituency to link race with fear of crime in this classic instance of hate politics.
In the 1994 congressional races, the religious right’s program to “restore family values” used the language of hate to support diverse agendas such as antigay legislation, exclusionary immigration policies, and reduced public assistance. Republican House members called for an end to “entitlement status.” Attempting to disparage the Democratic Party, they attacked with coded terms from a list which included “sick,” “traitors,” “corrupt,” “cheat,” “devour,” “self-serving,” and “criminal rights.”
In the 2000s and 2010s, as US politics grew increasingly bipartisan, the politics of hate were employed by both liberals and conservatives. Both national and local political campaigns saw greater use of attack ads using targeted language to appeal to fears and stereotypes. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks helped fuel a wave of anti-Islam rhetoric, while established issues such as immigration and LGBT rights remained a hotbed for hate politics. The proliferation of the Internet and social media also helped the politics of hate flourish beyond the direct speeches of politicians themselves.
Donald J. Trump used the politics of hate to his political advantage by tapping into racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and xenophobia during his 2016 US presidential campaign. At the beginning of his campaign in June 2015, he gave a speech in which he attacked Mexican immigrants as rapists, criminals, and drug dealers. He later promised that if elected he would build a wall on the Mexican border to keep immigrants out—and that Mexico would pay for it. He retweeted the false, White supremacist claim that Black people were to blame for 81 percent of the murders of White people in the United States. He also appeared to encourage violent attacks on Black protesters at his campaign rallies. In June 2016, Trump maligned US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was presiding over a lawsuit started by former students of Trump University against the school at the time. Trump stated Curiel had a conflict of interest because Curiel was “Mexican” and Trump was building a border wall, prompting critics across the political spectrum to decry his remarks as racist. Curiel, whose parents emigrated from Mexico, was born in Indiana and is a United States citizen. Trump also accused what he called the “Muslim community” of complicity in several incidents, including the shooting at the the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center (IRC) in December 2015 and in the June 2016 Pulse Nightclub shouting in Orlando, Florida. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make American Great Again” was widely considered to be a coded term meaning “Make American White Again.”
After Trump won the 2016 presidential election, hate and bias incidents that were linked to his hateful rhetoric spiked across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported 1,094 bias incidents in the month following Election Day. Of these incidents, more than one-third referred to Trump, his campaign slogan, or other remarks he made during his presidential campaign.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data shows 8,263 hate crimes reported in 2022up 12 percent from the previous year. Black Americans bore the heaviest burden of these attacks. The LGBTQ+ community also faced rising violence as political divisions cut deeper into American life.
Hate groups have spread their roots across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,020 of them by 2019the highest they have ever recorded. In cities across America, Black communities still face the most attacks, making up 22 percent of all hate crimes in 2022, according to researchers at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Bibliography
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Pitafi, Farrukh Khan. "Politics of Hate." Express Tribune, 9 May 2015, tribune.com.pk/story/politics-of-hate. Accessed 14 May 2015.
Potok, Mark, et al. "The Year in Hate and Extremism." Intelligence Report, 1 Mar. 2017, pp. 36-42.
Farivar, Masood. "Report: African Americans Remain Top Target of Hate Crimes." Voice of America, 30 Aug. 2023, voanews.com/a/report-african-americans-remain-top-target-of-hate-crimes/7246965.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.
Tsai, Robert L. "The Politics of Hate." Journal of Hate Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, 2012.
Waltman, Michael, and John Haas. The Communication of Hate. Lang, 2011.