(CN) - Citing the FBI’s count of more than 7,000 U.S. hate crimes last year, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released a plan Tuesday to combat white nationalist violence.
“We have all experienced the consequences of our president’s moral deficiencies,” Warren said in an online policy announcement. “Hate crimes spiked after Trump’s election, and last year violent personal attacks reached a 16-year high. And while many of these crimes have racial motivations, the white nationalist ideology also targets people of different beliefs, sexual orientations, and ability — anyone who doesn’t meet their warped definition of belonging.”
Warren said the U.S. has the structure and statutes to prosecute hate crimes but lacks the will. She promised to change that.
Nearly half of hate crimes involving race are committed against black individuals, Warren wrote, and anti-Semitic incidents shot up 60% in 2017.
She recounted the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, which killed 11 worshippers; the Charlottesville white-supremacist rally that led to the death of a counter-protester; and the mass shooting in an El Paso Wal-Mart where 22 people were killed by a gunman targeting immigrants.
“Domestic right-wing terrorism is completely incompatible with American values,” Warren wrote. “It is a threat to American safety and security.”
Warren also noted what she called the “shameful history” of the U.S. government to target peaceful protestors and activists of color.
As president, the Massachusetts senator said she would improve data collection in police departments across the country, and make it public. She’d shunt investigation and prosecution of significant hate crimes from state and local jurisdictions to the FBI, and train law enforcement to recognize such crimes.
And she said allies overseas that are also fighting white-supremacist violence could count on a Warren administration for partnership. She’d use her gun-control plans to keep weapons away from people who could be dangerous, while also touting how her plan to break up big tech would stem the flow of hate speech online. She would invest in school safety and counselors to reduce hate crimes among young people, plus protect targeted communities, such as undocumented immigrants and LGBTQ people, via police reforms.
“Donald Trump wants to divide us - to pit worker against worker, neighbor against neighbor,” Warren’s announcement concludes. "He wants Americans to blame their troubles on those who are new to our country, or who don’t look the same or pray the same or love the same, even as his administration robs us dry. But America can be better than that.”
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