What's That? You Say That Crime Is Actually Going Down *Dramatically* And Republicans Are *Lying*?
Facts don't care about your feelings!
Recent polling has shown that “crime” is one of voters’ top concerns in this upcoming election. That’s hardly surprising, given that the GOP and conservative media have been working overtime for the past several years, pushing the idea that we are in the midst of a terrifying crime wave from which only Donald Trump, currently on trial for his own crimes, can save us.
And yet! Recent data from the FBI shows that crime is, in fact, very much on a downward trajectory — especially from where it was in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Feel free to take a moment to recall who the president was at that time.
According to a preliminary report cited in USA Today, in 2023 there was a “4% drop in property crime, 6% drop in violent crime and 13% decrease in murders from 2022.” Despite this, a Gallup poll published this past November found that 77 percent of people believe that the crime rate actually increased. This is on track with previous polls on the subject. While crime has plunged dramatically from where it was in 1993, over 60 percent of the participants in 23 out of 27 Gallup polls taken since then have said they believe that crime is increasing.
It’s almost as if we are not actually very good judges of whether or not there is more crime!
According to Jeff Asher, a New Orleans-based crime data analyst cited by USA Today, “Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023, likely at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded.” He also previously stated, in an interview with NPR, that 2023 had one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years.
These are the facts, and yet Republicans like RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly insist they cannot possibly be true. Who are you going to believe? Her or your lying eyes, looking at the FBI statistics?
RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly said USA TODAY was "trying to gaslight Americans into believing that their lived experiences are wrong" and noted "families are rightfully concerned" about crime.
"Biden’s weakness has made Americans less safe, and his policies have failed," Kelly added.
Yet while the Gallup survey showed that 77 percent of people do erroneously believe that there is more crime than there was a year ago, only 17 percent of them say that “crime is a big problem where they live.” So these are not “lived experiences” so much as they are lived vibes.
This sounds dismissive, but it’s not. Most people are not going around constantly witnessing crime everywhere they go — all they have to go on is what they hear and how they feel. It’s not like Law and Order where people are constantly running into dead bodies on their morning coffee runs.
I have lived in Chicago a long time. I go out a lot, frequently until very late at night, and I have seen literally two crimes in the entire time I have been here — the first was when a guy stole my phone out of my hand on the bus 10 years ago, and the other was some teenagers shoplifting from Marshalls. I find it very difficult to believe that Trump voters living in Iowa or wherever are witnessing and experiencing more crime than I have. (Though, to be fair, red states actually do tend to have higher crime rates.)
There are two factors at issue here. One, rhetoric. That’s obvious. People hear “Oh, the crime is terrible!” and they internalize that and get frightened. Conservatives have been using this tactic for decades now because it works. Republican politicians and the conservative media do everything in their power to convince people that there is crime everywhere and only Donald Trump (or whoever) can protect them from it.
The other factor is that you can show people all of the evidence in the world that being “tough on crime” does not actually reduce crime and in fact makes things worse, a large chunk of them will simply never believe it, because to them it is just “common sense” that it would. They feel it deep in their bones, and that really is a lot to get past. It’s a construct that makes them feel more safe — that promises that the solution to their problem is obvious and that it is simply “whatever is the cruelest option” — and which, when you think about it, is an inherently flattering explanation. Isn’t it nicer for the problem to be “We’re just too kind” than “We were just too cruel”?
Via USA Today:
Regardless, Republican leaders accused Biden and Democrats of triggering an “onslaught of violent crime that is ravaging our communities,” as GOP Reps. Steve Scalise and Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a Fox News column. They blamed "defund the police" rhetoric – which Biden rejected – and criminal justice reform efforts on the left, such as ending cash bail.
“House Republicans are ready to stand up to the criminals who think that this country is theirs for the taking, and the leftists in Washington who are enabling this outbreak of violent crime,” the lawmakers wrote.
It feels better to believe that would-be-criminals would hear about cash bail reform and progressives calling to “defund the police” (despite the fact that this has not happened and police departments have, in fact, received more funding) and then say “Oh wow, this sounds great, guess no one will care if I go do a crime!” than it does to consider that the extreme inequality in our society is a much bigger factor. Not only does it result in people committing crimes of necessity and survival — your standard Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her children story — but also to people resenting and distrusting the system, feeling hopeless and apathetic, not feeling a sense of community, all of which could lead to antisocial behavior like criminal activity.
We need to take a hint from, I hate to say it, Ben Shapiro on this one — facts don’t care about your feelings. The facts here are that even though people feel like crime is going up, it is actually going down — and that literally zero would-be-criminals are sitting around saying to each other “Hey, did you hear that they got rid of cash bail? Maybe we should go rob a bank!”
The fact here is that Republicans are straight up lying and that no matter what the crime rate is, they will claim it is high when a Democrat is in office, because quite frankly, they don’t have a whole lot else to run on.
PREVIOUSLY:
HOLY FUCKING SHIRTBALLS!
*Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public-comment period the agency would publish the final rule.*
https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8
Now crime will REALLY drop!!!
“House Republicans are ready to stand up to the criminals who think that this country is theirs for the taking.”
Like that guy that tried to overturn a free and fair election?
Or maybe that guy who stole a bunch of top secret documents and hid them in his pool house?
Or maybe you mean the guy who wiped his ass with the emoluments clause to turn his public office into a piggy bank?
Or…
Well, you get the idea.