A couple of days ago, Rep. Nancy Mace released a video online presenting a rather scary vision of modern life in the United States. The South Carolina Republican’s video was accompanied by straightforward text: “Since Joe Biden took office, crime has skyrocketed across our country.”
A few days later, Donald Trump pushed the same line, publicly declaring that after he left the White House, crimes rates have “only” gotten worse.
Rhetoric like this no doubt helps fuel public perceptions, but ultimately, the public is left with a choice: Voters can listen to claims from GOP officials and candidates, or they can look at the evidence and learn the truth. Axios reported this morning:
The number of homicides in major American cities is falling at its quickest pace in decades following huge jumps during the pandemic. … The nation is on track to see one of the lowest levels of violent crimes and homicides since President Obama was in office.
The reporting comes on the heels of a related Wall Street Journal article, which also noted this week, “Nationwide, homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities from the beginning of the year through the end of March compared with the same period in 2023, according to crime-data analyst Jeff Asher, who tabulated statistics from police departments across the country.”
What’s more, NBC News reported last month on the latest FBI data, which confirmed “that crime in the U.S. declined significantly in 2023, continuing a post-pandemic trend and belying widespread perceptions that crime is rising.”
The White House not only touted the news, it also framed the new data in a not-so-subtle election-year context.
“In 2020, before I took office, the prior administration oversaw the largest increase in murders ever recorded,” President Biden said in a written statement. “My administration got to work on day one to fix that.”
Late last year, Donald Trump asked someone to name “one thing” that’s improved during Biden’s tenure. As it turns out, the list is rather long, but given the latest evidence, crime rates are certainly among the most notable areas of improvement.
But there was a line in the Axios report that stood out for me: “Polls show crime is a top concern ahead of the 2024 election — and it’s an issue where Republicans regularly edge Democrats. But falling homicide rates could take the steam out of the crucial GOP advantage.”
That’s true; it could. That said, it’s difficult to have confidence that it will.
Mace and Trump, for example, likely know that crime rates are falling. That didn’t stop them from telling the public the opposite of the truth, working from the assumption that many voters will simply believe the falsehoods and never hear about actual crime data. In the abstract, political campaigns have long followed some intuitive rules. Those looking to win tend to identify rivals’ areas of weakness and focus attention accordingly. Similarly, candidates have also taken care to learn about their foes’ strengths and tried to steer their races away from those issues. But crime rates offer a great example of how contemporary Republican politics rejects the intuitive rules for a different model. To the extent that reality still has meaning, Biden has a compelling story to tell: Crime rates, most notably murder rates, spiked toward the end of his Republican predecessor’s term. Under the incumbent Democratic president’s leadership, Americans are now safer. Common sense might suggest that Trump, Mace, and their GOP cohorts would see the news and try to move the public conversation away from this area of strength for Biden. But as it turns out, they find it far easier to effectively say, “Why don’t we just make stuff up and wait for the public to buy it?” Yes, the evidence could pose a problem for Republicans as the election season advances, but given the party’s shamelessness, cynicism, and complete indifference toward the data, it’s a safe bet that too many GOP voices will simply disregard the proof and keep lying.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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