For those who comply with GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s social media account or watch Fox Information, you may consider that stepping out of your home means you’re plummeting right into a harmful, post-apocalyptic world.
You’re most likely paranoid that strolling down any main metropolis avenue might lead to being mugged, overwhelmed, or murdered by the same old scapegoats—immigrants. As a result of in response to the right-wing’s favourite speaking factors, immigration and murder are wreaking havoc on main American cities.
However listed below are the information: Violent crime fell 3% in 2023, whereas homicide and manslaughter dipped by 11.6%, in response to new information from the FBI. And as for these large cities that, in response to Trump and his surrogates, are in anarchic free fall? Crime charges there are down for the second consecutive 12 months.
City areas have lengthy been a goal for Republican ire and right-wing media criticism. However the FBI statistics present that cities with greater than 1 million residents noticed probably the most vital dips in violent crime, with a 7% lower from 2022 to 2023.
Whereas the murder price surged by 30% in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, that quantity has since fallen and violent crime charges general at the moment are again all the way down to pre-pandemic ranges from 2019—when Trump was in workplace.
The previous president has made railing towards “out of control” crime in deeply blue cities a 2024 marketing campaign speaking level, constantly blaming Democrats and their “soft on crime” insurance policies in addition to police reform efforts. That didn’t cease 100 regulation enforcement leaders representing the nonpartisan group Police Leaders for Neighborhood Security from endorsing Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for president on Monday.
These new statistics gained’t cease Trump’s torrent of lies. In truth, as Every day Kos’ Oliver Willis reviews, the extra lies Trump tells, the additional his supporters grow to be entrenched in them. A brand new examine from Harvard Kennedy College’s Misinformation Evaluate revealed that if considered one of Trump’s claims is labeled as ‘disputed,” his voters are extra inclined to consider it.
“With crime at record levels, with terrorists and criminals pouring in and with inflation eating your hearts out, vote for Donald Trump,” he mentioned to hundreds at a New York rally Wednesday. “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Trump reiterated this lie on the Sept. 10 debate towards Harris.
“We have a new crime. It’s migrant crime and it’s happening at levels that nobody thought possible,” he mentioned. When ABC host David Muir fact-checked Trump’s assertion and clarified that violent crime is definitely down, Trump pivoted to a different false speaking level, claiming the FBI’s information was defective as a result of it didn’t embody the worst cities.
The newest FBI information consists of Democratic-majority cities like Seattle, Portland, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, to call a couple of.
Congressional GOP leaders are comfortable to echo Trump’s deceitful rhetoric.
“Make no mistake—this uptick in violence is the direct result of the radical Democrats’ soft-on-crime politics and the defund the police movement,” Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota mentioned at a GOP press convention throughout Nationwide Police Week in Could.
The newest FBI information might not change the minds of MAGA supporters, however that does not imply that falsehoods shouldn’t be known as out and refuted. Information matter—particularly as a result of a few of us nonetheless wish to stay in a world of reality, not paranoia and xenophobia.
