Republicans Love to Lie About Crime. Don't Believe Them | Opinion

Don't believe statistics, Republicans tell us; believe what we tell you.

The economy isn't strong they say, even though unemployment is near a 50 year low and inflation has slowed considerably to just 3.3 percent after being over 9 percent in June of 2022—a trend that, despite what Republicans would have you believe, began before Joe Biden entered office.

Joe Biden isn't healthy, they say, even though he appears to be perfectly fine and much more coherent than the ranting, raving Donald Trump, who consistently wanders off topic and spouts nonsense. Trump's recent meetings with lawmakers and the business community are illustrative of this. He spent most of the former railing against his detractors and complaining about everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Taylor Swift. At the latter, even those predisposed to supporting him reportedly shook their heads in bewilderment upon leaving, after Trump made suggestions like lowering the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 20 percent because "it's a round number."

Yet it's Biden we need to worry about?

Everything in MAGA world is based on belief rather than facts. The Jan. 6 attackers weren't terrorists intent on overthrowing our government, they say, but "patriots" and "heroes."

Sure. Why not? Just like Donald Trump is as pure and innocent as the driven snow and being persecuted by the "Deep State."

If we can all live in Fantasyworld, can I pretend I look exactly like Paul Rudd and have as many friends as Tom Hanks?

When reality is inconvenient, Trump and his touters simply go into an alternate reality. And now we're seeing it with crime. "Don't believe the Deep State!" they say. "Those stats can't be trusted!" Stats can only be trusted, apparently, if they favor the GOP, then they're fine.

Yet these stats do not favor the GOP, and so they've been condemned and dismissed. The 2024 FBI quarterly crime report makes clear that crime is down massively across the country—murder is down over 26 percent, rape down over 25 percent, robbery by almost 18 percent, assault by over 12 percent, and property crime down just over 15 percent.

President Biden issued a statement after the release of the data, noting how the funding provided by his American Rescue Plan helped put more cops on the street. This is verifiably true. Though MAGA world believes Biden is looking to "defund the police," he's actually done quite the opposite, stating unequivocally, "Fund them. Fund them with the resources and training ... they need to protect our communities."

Yet the administration has also given municipalities the freedom to use the funds they received in ways that most help their constituents, because sometimes the best way to reduce crime is to provide more affordable housing.

As the recent report indicates, this strategy is working tremendously well. Yet Donald Trump has a strategy of his own—not on how to deal with rising crime (because it isn't rising, of course), but on how to deal with reports that may damage his election prospects. And that strategy is a simple one—lie, lie, lie. It's a strategy that will be echoed by all of his acolytes, in Congress and in the media.

Back in March, when a previous report also indicated a massive decline in crime, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt issued a response so bizarre and dystopian, it rivaled Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts." Leavitt said, "Joe Biden is trying to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes. Democrats have turned great American cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime."

Can American eyes read statistics? In that case, they should definitely believe their own eyes and what those statistics tell them—that crime has gone way, way down.

Leavitt, of course, is just following the lead of her boss. The presumptive Republican nominee, a convicted felon, keeps repeating lines such as "crime is rampant and out of control like never, ever before." He describes cities as "cesspools" where murderers are killing people in broad daylight. In Trumpworld, America is Gotham City and he's Batman.

The irony is that Trump is not Batman but the Joker, representing one of the biggest threats of violence and instability to the nation. At every turn, he seeks to undermine the justice system and our democracy. He's currently putting together armies of supporters to "watch" polling places, and he's got many of his supporters convinced that the only way he could lose the election would be if the Democrats cheat (or, as he puts it, cheat again, because he still hasn't acknowledged losing in 2020).

President Joe Biden has done a fantastic job, and both the economy and these recent crime statistics demonstrate so. The question is—Should Americans believe the statistics or that constant conman, Dirty Donald? I mean, has he ever lied before?

Ross Rosenfeld is a political writer and educator based on Long Island. Follow Ross on Substack.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.