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The one piece of good news Trump won’t claim credit for
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Opinion
The one piece of good news
Trump won’t claim credit for
It would be a shame if Trump’s critics let him get away with fooling
the public on this score.
‘Not true’: Chris Hayes on the reality of the massive crime drop in
America
03:25
Dec. 30, 2024, 6:11 PM EST
By Paul Waldman, author and commentator
Now that Donald Trump is about to become president again, there’s
plenty of good news for which he can take undeserved
credit. Unemployment is low, inflation is down, gas is cheap
and getting cheaper, the stock market is booming, and before long
Trump will say it was all his doing. But there’s one positive
development that he is unlikely to claim responsibility for or even
admit is happening: Crime, especially homicide, is down
dramatically from the spike that occurred during the worst of the
pandemic in 2020.
The reasons Trump won’t tout declining crime have to do with the
way he uses fear and sets Americans from different kinds of places
against one another. But while it may be understandable for his
critics to throw up their hands in frustration, it would be a shame if
they let Trump get away with fooling the public on this score. Trump
can be a successful propagandist, mostly because of his audacity
and persistence — but not always, and not nearly to the extent he’d
like us to believe.
Back here in reality, much of the recent news about crime has been
highly encouraging.
Trump’s message about public safety has been consistent long
before his time as a candidate and as president: Crime is out of
control, it’s getting worse by the day, and it’s especially bad in
cities, which are nightmares of mayhem and terror. In his first
inaugural address eight years ago, Trump said we were suffering
through “American carnage” that he would bring to an end. Yet
while there was seemingly nothing he wouldn’t boast about, as
president he never claimed he had created a world of perfect
safety.
And when a few of the thousands of protests that took place after
the murder of George Floyd turned violent, he claimed that
America’s cities had turned into thunderdomes of bloodshed — then
kept saying the same thing for the next four years even as the Covid
crime spike dissipated.
Back here in reality, much of the recent news about crime has been
highly encouraging. Boston has recorded only 24 homicides in all of
2024, the fewest since 1957. In San Francisco, which conservatives
often describe as emblematic of urban decay, there have been only
34 homicides, the fewest since 1960. Detroit had fewer homicides in
2023 than in any year other since 1966, and this year’s total will
be even lower. More broadly, the FBI’s most recent quarterly crime
report found that violent crime decreased by 10% from the year
before, with violent crime in Washington, D.C., hitting a 30-year low.
MAGA infighting erupts over immigration visas: ‘It's the collision of
greed and hatred’
11:30
Of course, crime rates haven’t fallen uniformly in all places or in all
categories. And somehow, all the guns in the United States haven’t
made Americans safer than residents in most peer countries. But in
the aggregate, it seems that the pandemic-era crime spike has
reversed.
That’s good news for all of us — except for Trump, who would prefer
Americans live in a state of constant anxiety and fear. He has gotten
great mileage out of convincing his most ardent supporters
(especially those in rural areas and small towns) that cities are
terrifyingly violent, driven to chaos by Democratic mismanagement.
So perhaps it’s time Democrats started making more noise about
the places that have succeeded in reducing crime — not just to
cheer, but to get people talking about which policies worked and
how we might prevent future increases in crime rates.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a topic Democrats generally like talking
about. They know that most Americans usually say crime is rising
even when it’s falling (or at least that’s what they tell pollsters). And
Democrats are always afraid of being called “soft on crime,” even
when their policies succeed.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a topic Democrats generally like talking
about.
The first step to getting over their own fear is to understand that
Trump doesn’t have magical powers of persuasion. His message will
never change; he’ll always say that in American cities, “you can’t
walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get
mugged. You get raped.” But he makes ludicrous claims on many
issues, and most people don’t believe them reflexively. Even many
of his own supporters think he exaggerates for effect.
Dominance of the media landscape doesn’t equal persuasive
powers. Ronald Reagan’s mastery of the medium of television was
so striking that media scholars wrote books about how he
transformed presidential communication. Yet his deft use of the
dominant medium of the day didn’t translate into endless political
success.
Reagan was re-elected handily, but many of his policy initiatives
failed, and he was, in fact, not all that popular compared with other
presidents before and after. His average approval rating was higher
than Gerald Ford’s, Richard Nixon’s or Harry Truman’s but lower
than Lyndon B. Johnson’s, John F. Kennedy’s, Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s, George H.W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s.
Propaganda has its limits, even in the hands of a skilled performer
like Reagan. Yet many people, including many reporters, mistakenly
assumed that since Reagan was so at ease on screen and his team
so proficient at creating photo-ops, the public must have been
convinced of what he was saying.
There’s a temptation to make the same assumption about Trump
today: He dominates the contemporary media environment, so of
course his propaganda must be successful. But that will be the case
only if it goes unanswered. And since Trump will keep trying to
make us all afraid that we’ll be murdered whenever we leave the
house, Americans deserve a debate on crime that might lead to
more effective policies. Even if we run the risk that one day Trump
will take the credit.
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared
in dozens of publications. He writes The Cross Section, a newsletter
about politics and culture, and co-hosts the "Boundary Issues"
podcast. His latest book is "White Rural Rage: The Threat to
American Democracy."
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