Vitriol only intensifies after bitter election

When Joe Gavish saw the truck, with its “I Hate Muslims” bumper sticker and enormous flapping Trump flags, he knew it would catch fire on social media. So he quickly posted a video on Facebook, along with a plea to “check this guy out.”

But he did not quite expect the level of outrage provoked by the video, which went up the afternoon after Election Day and within about 24 hours had racked up 300,000 views. Strangers posted expletive-laden comments and dug up the truck owner’s name and address. Other commenters suggested the driver had good reason for his views. By Wednesday night, Gavish had deleted the video.

“I felt like it was just spreading anger,” said Gavish, 27, owner of Weard Beard Trading Co., a gemstone firm in Brooksville, Fla. “I hope this country is heading in a good direction. I’m just not sure right now.”

Three days since businessman Donald Trump won the presidency, it is clear that the animosity wrought by a historically divisive election did not simply die in its wake, but may have intensified.

U.S. cities have been convulsed by anti-Trump protests. Swastikas, racial slurs and personal threats have appeared on public buildings and dorm room doors. And online, the vicious word-slinging between supporters of the two candidates has escalated to include videotaped accounts of personal confrontation and retribution.

“You can’t fix months of really divisive rhetoric with a couple of calls for unity,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “We can’t forget that a fringe element of our society was emboldened over a period of months, and it’s going to take more than words to create an atmosphere where people feel truly united.”

At a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, President Obama again called for reconciliation. He noted that the federal holiday “often follows a hard-fought political campaign — an exercise in the free speech and self-government that . . . often lays bare disagreements across our nation. But the American instinct has never been to find isolation in opposite corners. It is to find strength in our common creed, to forge unity from our great diversity, to sustain that strength and unity even when it is hard.”

The remarks came after another night of unruly protesters in a handful of cities smashed cars, lit fires and vandalized buildings. At least 350 people have been arrested this week — more than half of them during protests in Los Angeles — amid demonstrations that included highway blockades, angry chants of “Not my president” and a rampage through Portland, Ore., that police declared a “riot.”

The protests continued for a third night on Friday in Atlanta, Miami and other cities, but remained largely peaceful.

Trump, too, departed briefly from his calls for reconciliation Thursday night to blast the protesters on Twitter, but tweeted Friday that the protesters were exercising their constitutional rights.

But a Trump adviser described the protesters as “messed up” and “clueless.”

“If they want to protest and make fools of themselves, that’s fine,” Carl P. Paladino, Trump’s New York campaign co-
chairman, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “This isn’t like Vietnam, where there was a war and misery to protest. I have no idea what these protesters are really protesting other than what the media tells them is a bad thing.”

The vitriol was not limited to those angry about Tuesday’s results. Across the country, women and minorities reported incidents of intimidation perpetrated by Trump supporters or those claiming to be, who under the cloak of anonymity seemed to see in the results a validation of their extremist views.

Many of the incidents took place at schools and colleges.

At Wake Forest University, some freshmen ran out of a dorm early Wednesday celebrating Trump’s victory and using slurs, including the n-word. University officials condemned the behavior, and said two suspects have been identified.

On social media, students at the University of Pennsylvania shared screen shots of a text they received indicating they had been added to a racist Group Me account that included a “daily lynching” calendar. A law student posted on Facebook, “I just can’t stop crying. I feel sick to my stomach. I don’t feel safe.”

Source|Washingtonpost