‘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.
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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.
