More violence reported in cities where Donald Trump rallies held, says new study

It may not come as much of a surprise for anyone who paid attention to the 2016 presidential election in the United States, but wherever Donald Trump went that year, violence soon followed. And now there’s statistical proof.

That’s according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, which found that cities that hosted Trump rallies experienced an average of 2.3 more assaults when the future president .

The results suggest that media coverage during the election — which frequently showed violence at Trump rallies, sometimes encouraged by Mr Trump himself — was accurate in its portrayal of the unusual level of violence at political events. Things got vicious, no matter how much Mr Trump liked to claim his events were “love fests”.

“The language our leaders use matters. The language the leaders use can affect the mood of the nation, and may have a measurable and meaningful impact on people’s behaviour,” Christopher Morrison, the study’s lead author, told The Independent of the correlation he and his fellow researchers found. “In this case [it is] assault and violence”.

While Mr Morrison said that his study does not address whether Mr Trump himself was the actual cause of the increase in assaults, the Republican’s 2016 rallies were notable for the violence caught on camera during the events, and for the candidate’s response to the energy in the room.

Throughout the year, as American political discourse simmered with rage, videos showing Trump supporters socking protesters were posted online, sparking concerned reactions that the United States and reached a cultural breaking point where civility no longer mattered. Mr Trump, for his part, relished in the energy at the rallies, and even offered to pay the legal bills for someone during an event where he suggested his followers attack someone.

In North Carolina, for instance, a man was caught on camera at a Trump rally punching and choking a protester who had infiltrated the event. At a separate North Carolina event during the campaign, a separate video showed a man in a cowboy hat walk up to an African American protester who was leaving and punch him from the side. In Chicago, things got so bad that police were forced to shut down a campaign rally fearing that things would get out of hand.

Mr Morrison said that they did not find a similar up-tick in violence in cities where Mr Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, held rallies.

But, researchers also noted that, in addition to the attitude propagated by Mr Trump himself at the rallies, there my be many other potential explanations in the violent spike. Mr Trump’s contentious candidacy required a heavy police presence, for instance, so it is possible more reports were filed simply because more cops were around.