This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s website.

On Friday, a gunman killed three

at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. Later, in explaining his motive to

the police, he said “no more baby parts.”

Last Monday, gunmen opened fire

on Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis who were demanding action against two white Minneapolis police officers

involved in the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, an unarmed black man, on

Nov. 15.

Evidence shows the accused shooters

were linked to white supremacist organizations operating online.

Meanwhile, the FBI reports an

upturn in threats on mosques and Muslims in the United States.

In Connecticut, police are

investigating reports of multiple gunshots fired at a local mosque. Two

Tampa Bay-area mosques in Florida received threatening phone messages. One of

the calls threatened a firebombing.

In an Austin suburb, leaders of the

Islamic Center of Pflugerville discovered feces and torn pages of the Qur’an.

Hate crimes will never be

eliminated entirely. A small number of angry, deranged people inevitably will vent

their rage at groups they find threatening. Some will do so violently.

But this doesn’t absolve politicians who have been fueling such hatefulness.

Perpetrators of hate crimes often take

their cues from what they hear in the media. And the recent inclination of some politicians

to use inflammatory rhetoric is contributing to a climate of hate and fear.

Carly Fiorina continues to allege,

for example, that Planned Parenthood is selling body parts of fetuses.

Although the claim has

been proven baseless, it’s been repeated not only by Fiorina but

also by other candidates. Mike Huckabee calls it

“sickening” that “we give these butchers money to harvest human organs.”

Even in the wake of Friday’s Colorado shootings,

Donald Trump referred to videos “with some of these people from Planned

Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car.”

Some candidates are also

fomenting animus toward Muslims.

Huckabee says he’d “like for

Barack Obama to resign if he’s not going to protect America and instead protect

the image of Islam.”

Ben Carson says allowing

Syrian refugees into the United States is analogous to exposing a neighborhood

to a “rabid dog.” Last September Carson said he “would not advocate that we put a

Muslim in charge of this nation.”

Since the attacks that killed 130

people in Paris earlier this month, Trump

has advocated registering all Muslims in the United States and putting American

mosques under surveillance.

He’s also claimed that

Muslim-Americans in New Jersey celebrated by the “thousands” when the World Trade

Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, although there’s no evidence to

back that claim.

Indeed, much of Trump’s campaign is

built on hatefulness. And Trump not only fails to

condemn violence he provokes but finds excuses for it.

After a handful of white supporters

recently punched and attempted to choke a Black Lives Matter protester at one

of his campaign rallies, Trump said “maybe he should have been roughed up.”

Trump began his campaign last June by falsely alleging Mexican immigrants are “bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Weeks later in Boston, two

brothers beat with a metal poll and urinated on a 58-year-old homeless

Mexican national. They subsequently told the police “Donald Trump was right,

all these illegals need to be deported.“

But instead of condemning that brutality, Trump excused it by saying

“people who are following me are very passionate. They

love this country and they want this country to be great again.”

I’m not suggesting Trump, Carson,

Fiorina, or any other presidential candidate is directly to blame for hate

crimes erupting across America.

But by virtue of their standing as

presidential candidates, their words carry particular weight. They have a responsibility to calm people with the truth rather than stir them up with lies.

In suggesting that the staff of

Planned Parenthood, Muslims, Black Lives Matter protesters, and Mexican

immigrants are guilty of venal acts, these candidates are fanning the flames of

hate.

This itself is despicable.