The United States has long grappled with the pervasiveness of hate crimes. This could be attributed to the fact that the country is a melting pot of different cultures. Specifically, according to both conflict theories and cultural studies, when two or more cultures interact, conflict often arises because different groups vie for dominance. But hate crime in the United States is not only a product of its demographical makeup but also of its leadership direction.
The Leadership Effect: Examining Hate Crimes Under Shifting Party Control in the United States
Background: The Growing Incidents of Hate Crimes
A hate crime is a traditional criminal offense—like murder, assault, or vandalism—that is motivated, either in whole or in part, by the bias of the perpetrator against the actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity of the victim. Mere hate is not a crime. The existence of the actual criminal offense is essential.
Nevertheless, in the United States, from modern mass shootings involving white supremacists like the Charleston Church Shooting in 2015 and the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting in 2018, to earlier racial violence like the Black Wall Street Massacre in 1921 and the murder of 14-year-old African American Emmet Till in 1955, hate crimes have been a perennial problem.
Data from 2015 to 2019 from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics show that bias against the race, ethnicity, and national origin of the victim was the most common motivation for nonfatal violent hate crimes. A report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also revleaed that the number of reported hate crimes has increased by about 100 percent since 2015.
A closer inspection of the FBI data shows that there is a steep increase in nonviolent and violent hate crimes in the U.S. between 2018 and 2024. There was a 110 percent increase in anti-Black hate crimes, another 212 percent increase in antisemitic hate crimes, and a 110 percent increase in hate crimes driven by homophobia or anti-LGBT sentiments from 2015 to 2024.
Impact of Leadership and its Policy and Rhetoric
Scholars argue that political leadership can influence hate crimes through policy direction. This was examined by L. Dugan and E. Chenoweth from Harvard Kennedy School. Their 2021 paper noted that the media reported an increase in the number of hate crimes committed against marginalized groups since Donald Trump was elected U.S. president in 2017.
Their investigation examined the merits of political threat and emboldenment hypotheses. The first concept predicts that positive government attention toward specific groups would lead to more hateful violence directed against them. The second predicts that negative attention toward specific groups would also lead to more hateful violence directed against them.
Data from federal government agencies between 1992 and 2012 and vector autoregression models provided support for both hypotheses. This depended on the protected group involved. African Americans were more vulnerable to hate crimes motivated by political threat, and Latin Americans were more vulnerable or predisposed to hate crimes due to emboldenment.
Nevertheless, beyond marginalized group focus, research has emphasized supply-side drivers of hate crime. Leadership influences not only through policy but also through rhetoric. Political signals, specific elite discourse, and institutional decisions provide the supply of rationalizations and opportunities for hate crimes, thus emboldening biased individuals to act.
Researchers M. A. S. Souza et al. investigated the relationship between political parties and hate crimes in the U.S. using empirical models and considering a panel data with 47 states from 1997 to 2019. Their findings revealed that a U.S. president from the Democratic Party is correlated with fewer hate crimes compared with a president from the Republican Party.
Note that the correlation is not uniform across political structures. Findings indicated that while a Democratic president correlated with lower hate crimes, Democratic governors had varied effects. In Southern states, Democratic governors were linked with higher hate crime rates, whereas in non-Southern states, they correlated with lower reported hate crimes.
The aforementioned highlights the importance of context. Historical legacies of racial segregation and political polarization in the Southern U.S. may explain why Democratic governors correlate with higher hate crimes there. In contrast, other regions, especially the Midwest and Northeast, show evidence of Democratic governance coinciding with fewer hate crimes.
Reminders: Extremist Violence and Critical Caveats
Reports from federal government agencies and independent institutions have indicated that most incidents of political violence in U.S. history have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists like white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and emerging alt-right subcultures. This supports the fact that the rate of hate crimes tends to increase under right-wing leadership.
Exact measurement issues complicate interpretation. Hate crimes are notoriously underreported according to researcher A. C. D. Küchler. His investigation analyzed reporting behavior, local norms, and extremist group activity across states. Findings showed that Republican vote share or right-wing group presence can reduce reported hate crimes in a particular area.
The broader implication is that leadership and dominance of ideologies at both the national and state levels matter to a certain extent. Democratic leadership correlates with fewer hate crimes, but regional dynamics alter this pattern. Historical context, demographic composition, and law enforcement practices all interact with partisan control in complex ways.
Nevertheless, taken together, leadership and politics under Democrats tend to correlate with fewer hate crimes. This could be due to specific policies and the absence of inflammatory rhetoric. It is still worth noting that the correlation is neither absolute nor universal. A careful attention to different contexts is essential for understanding this politically significant pattern.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Dugan, L., and Chenoweth, E. 2020. “Threat, Emboldenment, or Both? The Effects of Political Power on Violent Hate Crimes.” Criminology. 58(4): 714-746. DOI: 1111/1745-9125.12259
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2025. “Hate Crime Statistics.” How Can We Help You. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Available online
- Kena, G. and Thompson, A. September 2021. “Hate Crime Victimization, 2005-2019.” Hate Crime. Bureau of Justice Statistics, United States Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. Available online
- Küchler, A. C. D. 2024. “Hiding the Hate—Contextual Effects on Hate Crime Reports.” Social Sciences. 13(9): 466. DOI: 3390/socsci13090466
- Souza, M. A. S., Loureiro, P. R. A., Bertussi, G. L., Cunha, G. H. M., and Moreira, T. B. S. 2022. “Political Parties and Hate Crimes: Empirical Evidence from the United States.” International Journal of Economics and Finance. 14(11): 46. DOI: 5539/ijef.v14n11p46
- 5 September 2025. “Are Hate Crimes on the Rise?” USAFacts. Available online