Here's the national murder rate since 1970:
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Sorry, but I don't see a reason to panic. What I will say is that if Obama was SO terrible for the murder rate, then
it should have been obvious in the first six years as well, especially given the terrible economic crisis he inherited on day one (yes, economics do have some effect on the violent crime rate). So what happened in the last two years? The only big difference - sociologically speaking - was the rise of the influence of the "white nationalists", the alt-right. There has been a marked increase in hate groups and hate crimes. From
Fox News (yes, FOX NEWS):
Obama’s presidency paired with the emergence the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the increasing diversification of the country and a decline in blue collar careers left some white Americans feeling marginalized and became prime fodder for the white nationalist movement, he said. The number of hate groups as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center topped 1,000 for the first time ever in 2011 and while that number of groups dropped to 912 last year that likely understates the growing level of white nationalists in the country.
“It’s like in the 1920s with the Ku Klux Klan,” Hahn said. “What was striking was not that number of KKK members but the number of people who were allies of the group. Today the number of white nationalists don’t actually reveal the range of people who also sympathize with them.”
Experts and civil rights advocates contend that the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump only further vitalized these groups as the president’s call for stricter immigration controls and a ban on Muslim’s entering the country resonated with white nationalists.
Corey Saylor, the director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia at CAIR, said that while the U.S. Muslim community saw spikes in hate crimes following the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, his organization has noticed an unprecedented spike in incidents since the start of 2017. CAIR recently reported a 91 percent jump in hate crimes directed at Muslims for the second quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016.
Is this in and of itself sufficient to blame the rising homicide rate on the alt-Right and the white nationalists? Of course not...but it may well be a factor. You do recall Trump's "fine people on both sides" remark after Charlottesville, and the fact that
Congress voted almost unanimously to FORCE Trump to condemn the white supremacists. You have to ask yourself exactly why it is that Trump wouldn't do that BEFORE the Republican-led Congress forced him to do so.
What's more,
there is a significant contingent of white supremacists in our police forces across the country...and
IMO this is probably the biggest single reason for the jump in the homicide rates. Why? When the minorities believe (
rightly or wrongly) that they are being targeted by the police, they will trust the police much less...and will be less likely to call the police when in need. This effect is magnified by the several instances of police shooting unarmed blacks - sometimes when it was the black man or woman who first called the police. Why should they call the police when they feel they have reason to believe that the police will be more likely to arrest or shoot them than to address whatever it is they would call the police about? And it doesn't help at all when firearms are sold so easily and cheaply that almost anyone can purchase them.
So...no. Given that the fact that the national homicide rate FELL from 5.0/100K to 4.5/100K during the first SIX years of Obama's presidency, and given the rise of the alt-Right and in hate crimes in the past two years, and given the deterioration of the trust that minorities have in law enforcement, it's very, very unlikely that the rise in the homicide rate over the past two years has anything to do with what Obama did or failed to do.
