The deployment of the national guard in Washington ignores the data. But Democrats must not ignore how people feel
The deployment of the national guard in Washington ignores the data. But Democrats must not ignore how people feel
In most of America’s largest cities, crime, especially violent crime, is down. But the fear of crime is increasing.
Donald Trump has made a career out of ignoring the reality of crime rates and of stoking that fear. Well before he entered politics and throughout his political career, he has talked about city life as life in a proverbial jungle.
In 2022, he talked frequently about the “ blood-soaked streets of our once-great cities” and said: “Cities are rotting, and they are indeed cesspools of blood.” And he never strays far from that playbook.
On 11 August, the president returned to his demagogic characterizations of America’s urban areas when he deployed national guard and federal law enforcement agents to the streets of Washington DC. He said the city was awash in “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor”.
He claimed that “crime is out of control in the District of Columbia”. In fact, violent crime in the District of Columbia is the lowest it has been in more than three decades.
But Trump didn’t just ignore the data. He leaned into a different problem in Washington: fear of crime.
Referring to Washingtonians who like to jog, the president said: “People tell me they can’t run any more. They’re just afraid.”
And he was not content to target just the nation’s capital. “You look at Chicago,” he said, “how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities in a very bad – New York is a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that any more. They’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen.”
Never mind that, like Washington, as CNN reports, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities also have had “substantial declines in 2024, 2025 or both”.
So far, Democratic political leaders have repeated those statistics as if that in itself will carry the day.
