All Politics is Local,

And All Hate is Local

Former House Speaker, “Tip” O’Neil, once said, “that all politics is local”. This was true back in the ’70s and even more true now. Over the past 4 years, we have seen a drastic increase in the number of hate crimes in our country. In the past year, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a 150% increase in violent crimes against Asians. This can be primarily attributed to former President Trump, who insisted on referring to the disease as “the China virus”’ in an attempt to blame Asians for his incompetency and negligence that killed half a million Americans. Of course, most Americans are not educated or intelligent enough to understand the epidemiology of this virus and cannot tell the difference between a Chinese person, a Japanese, Thai, Korean, Indonesian, Indian, or any other person from Asia. They react to fear-mongering and blame all Asians.

Trump did not invent racism and hatred, but he legitimized it and used it to divide the country, for his own purposes. Racists, bigots, and haters have always been hiding in the shadows in this country. Up until Trump was elected they were prominent at the local level, but not as evident on the national stage. They controlled who could vote and who their communities sent to Washington to represent them.

During the Trump administration, the rights and freedoms of minorities were fair game. Immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and Democrats were vilified and attacked. The Republicans in Congress allowed…