According to ThinkProgress, “Attacks against American Muslims are at peak levels this year, a phenomenon experts say is directly related to the widespread use of Islamophobic rhetoric by politicians during the 2016 campaign season — especially Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.”
Since November, ThinkProgress has kept a kept a “running tally” of anti-Muslim incidents across America. Last week, the tally hit 100. According to the site, these are the most extreme incidents encompassing “violent attacks, threats, assaults, protests, firings, airport profiling cases, and instances of vandalism perpetrated against American Muslims and their houses of worship.”
The map above and in the article indicates the specific nature of the incidents/attacks (it’s also more interactive if you click onto the article).
Engy Abdelkader of Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative has been tracking this connection between these anti-Muslim incidents and the incendiary political rhetoric of late. “While the violence [against Muslims] appeared to level off in the beginning of 2016, it still remained 3 to 5 times higher than pre-election levels. Significantly, these attacks were also accompanied by anti-Muslim political rhetoric and policy posturing by GOP presidential candidates, including now Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.”
