The academic elite behind the prevalent philosophy in tech censorship is ready to blame the GOP for pretty much everything.
A study produced by three Iowa State University and University of Kansas professors has studied the link between political rhetoric and white nationalist hate crimes. Political science professors Olga Chyzh, Mark Neiman, and Clayton Webb arrived at the conclusion that tweets from President Donald Trump (and other elected officials) cause a rise in hate crimes.
The study argued that there was “a strong correlation between tweets by this subset of U.S. representatives and incidents of hate crimes, ranging from racially charged instances of vandalism and threats to physical assault and murder.”
The study relied on data from the Soros-funded outlet ProPublica’s project, Hate Crime Index. Using incidents described by this project, the study centered on the effects of Trump’s tweets on hate crimes, as well as the tweets of politicians with “the biggest following of white nationalists.”
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings, as measured by liberal FiveThirtyEight, were considered to cause a rise in hate crime as well. The reason? “Several prominent members of the white nationalist community in the United States have made public pronouncements about the significance of the President and his policies to the white nationalist movement.”
Therefore, “it is possible that increases in Donald Trump’s approval ratings may embolden white nationalists to commit more hate crimes.”
Ironically, the politician with the biggest following of white nationalists was neither white nor Republican, That was Democrat Missouri Representative Lacy Clay. The study also pointed out the anomaly and stated that white nationalism was not necessarily a partisan concept, but at the same time continued to focus only on the results that stemmed from the GOP’s tweets. Republican Representatives Steve Scalise, Steve King, Andy Biggs and Matt Gaetz were all highlighted on the list.
The irony is that Rep. Scalise was the victim of a hate crime himself, in June of 2017. At a congressional baseball game, Scalise was shot by James Hodgkinson, who literally targeted Republicans.
The appendix went on to indicate that only the GOP was scrutinized heavily:
It is possible that a majority of the covariation between hate crimes and Twitter activity can be attributed to Republicans. After all, the highest profile members of the house that have been associated with white nationalists, Steve King and Steve Scalise, are members of the Republican party.
Twitter’s policy conversations were also cited as a marker of the rhetoric of GOP politicians. “The distinction between present-day Republican rhetoric and overt hate speech has become so blurred that Twitter is unable to identify and ban white nationalist content...out of fear of accidentally removing some tweets by the President and other politicians,” specified the study.
What should politicians who have unwittingly gathered a large following of white nationalists do? The study says that they should not pursue public service. Otherwise they will “normalize more radicalized perspectives.”
