Terrorism in Europe was much worse in the 1970s and ‘80s, even discounting Northern Island during the Troubles. The below chart of annual deaths from terror attacks has been updated to include Brussels (and one lone death in Northern Ireland, included since the Troubles officially ended with the Good Friday Agreement.) NOTE: An earlier version of this chart mislabeled the London subway bombings, which occurred in 2005, not 2011. The 2011 spike is due to the mass shooting in Norway by a white supremacist.
Unfortunately, it is not clear that American primary voters care about the historical perspective. On November 30th, we pushed back against a breezy statement by Kevin Drum in which he argued that the Paris mass casualty attacks had no impact on the primary election. Fivethirtyeight has now published a somewhat more sophisticated analysis demonstrating the same argument: both Paris and San Bernadino helped Donald Trump in the GOP primary.
Hopefully, history will not repeat. It would be better for the country (and probably the GOP) for Donald Trump to go to the convention with less than a majority of delegates.
Jive turkey just blew right through the last shreds of the torture taboo.
Posted by: Carlos | March 22, 2016 at 06:33 PM
I don't think they can stop him even if he lacks a majority on the first ballot. These schemes they're hatching reek of increasing desperation.
Posted by: Matt McIrvin | March 22, 2016 at 08:45 PM
One could also argue that Trump's original decline around early September is timed with Ben Carson's boom, the start of the surge in Trump's numbers around the Paris Attacks 11/13/15 is also the debate that seemed to start to deflate Carson (11/10/15).
Posted by: Logan | March 23, 2016 at 12:30 AM
Meanwhile, the guy who establishment Republicans find not beyond the pale is hiring Frank Gaffney and calling for vaguely defined patrols of Muslim neighborhoods to make sure they're not getting all radicalized.
Posted by: Matt McIrvin | March 23, 2016 at 07:23 AM
The arrow from "London Subway bombings" goes the wrong way.
Posted by: thorazine | March 23, 2016 at 08:39 AM
Er?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 23, 2016 at 08:40 AM
I think he means the arrow for the "London Subway bombings" is pointing to the wrong event on the chart. They are pointing to something that happened in 2011 whereas the London subway bombings occurred on July 7, 2005 (so the spike beside the Madrid train bombings). The 2011 incident would be the Breivik shootings/bombings I think.
Posted by: J.H. | March 23, 2016 at 10:54 AM
Yes - thank you for clarifying my point, J.H. I found the error disturbing because I live in London, and have since well before 2011, and could remember no Tube bombings that year.
Posted by: thorazine | March 23, 2016 at 11:00 AM
Oh, yes! Right. Bejesus. Fixing it now.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 23, 2016 at 11:24 AM
I'm not sure how I did that: if you click the link, you'll see that my earlier chart had the attacks labeled correctly. Many apologies!
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 23, 2016 at 11:31 AM
Logan: That is an excellent point and exactly why I love active comment threads.
We can test the hypothesis. Do Carson's numbers start to fall after November 10th?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 23, 2016 at 11:33 AM
It would seem that the inflection point is indeed shortly before the Paris attacks and might be when Carson started to deflate.
Of course this could just mean that the Paris and San Bernadino attacks simply aided Trump to maintain the momentum triggered by Carson's deflation and the Brussels attacks will likely do the same.
Posted by: J.H. | March 23, 2016 at 01:25 PM
It's not strictly scientific, but I prefer explanations with fewer steps of cause and effect. Without further evidence, an explanation that links the rise to Carson alone is stronger than a second-order effect.
I suppose this makes the Brussels horror something of a natural experiment.
Posted by: Carlos | March 23, 2016 at 03:02 PM
I think the worry is not that Europe cannot handle the current level of terrorism but that such attacks may presage worse to come. If terrorism and migration both intensify parts of Europe may react with illiberal solutions.
Posted by: Dave K | March 24, 2016 at 12:06 AM