Crime Surge Puts Biden in a Bind
– By Howard Sierer –
When it comes to dealing with the nation’s crime surge, Pres. Biden will have to choose to follow either the woke progressive wing of his party or the rest of us, both Democrats and Republicans. Given his track record to date, the choice is a toss-up.
In the wake of riots and civil disorder in the 1960s and early 1970s, Democrats were quick to blame police for any confrontation and earned the dubious distinction of being soft on crime. In subsequent years, Democrats have championed the rights of those accused of crimes while largely ignoring the plight of victims.
Calls to “defund the police” became headline news in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. A significant number of Democratic elected officials took up the cry. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave every impression of supporting the ill-fated message when she called for local authorities to consider “reallocating” local funding from police budgets to social services.
Sadly, but predictably, homicides rose rapidly shortly afterward according to the New York Times. The Times noted that the same phenomenon had occurred following protests and riots in 2015 and 2016.
Cooler heads in the Democratic Party recognized the danger in associating the party with defunding the police, including to his credit Pres. Biden, but the label stuck nonetheless. Pelosi was challenged in February of this year and responded by backtracking, saying “[Defunding the police] is not the position of the Democratic Party” in an ABC interview.
The recent rush by Democrats to express support for law and order, at least by those politicians facing competitive elections this fall, is prompted by a nationwide surge in serious crime. According to the FBI, in 2020 the country experienced a 29.4% increase in murders and a 12.2% increase in aggravated assault. Things got worse in 2021 with an additional 9% increase in murders over 2020. There were over 800 homicides in Chicago alone in 2021, the highest level recorded in 25 years.
This year’s violent crime rate is up dramatically again, as much as 25% so far in New York, 12% in Washington DC, and up single digits in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
Property crimes have decreased, allowing some Democrats to claim that “overall” crime rates are essentially unchanged: burglaries don’t make the front page while murders of innocents do. The Uvalde, Buffalo and Highland Park mass shootings, where a total of 38 people died, grabbed headlines. But the public is almost numb to the fact that over 19,000 murders were committed in 2021 and we’re on track for even more this year. Paraphrasing Joseph Stalin, “A single death is a tragedy, 19,000 deaths are a statistic.”
National crime statistics are disturbing but crime is experienced locally. In an October 2021 Gallup survey, the number of Americans who believe that crime is up in their local area is the highest it’s been in 25 years. Gallup found crime ranks as the third-most important issue among 14 tested, trailing only the economy and inflation. Other polls here and here show that over 80% of registered voters rank crime and personal safety as a problem of concern equal to the economy and inflation.
Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill made famous the quote “all politics is local.” That idea is easily extended to “all crime is local.” With that in mind, there is relatively little that Pres. Biden can do about crime, not that he isn’t trying. His support for additional police funding in this year’s State of the Union address was a clear sign that Democrats recognize the significance of rising crime in this year’s midterms.
Nonetheless, many liberal Democrats have a conflict in embracing what has traditionally been a Republican theme. Shadi Hamid wrote a thoughtful article in the liberal Atlantic magazine entitled “The Liberals Who Won’t Acknowledge the Crime Problem.” He notes that “it is people of color—not the predominantly white liberals who often dismiss the prevalence of crime as a right-wing talking point—who are most affected by crime in American cities. There’s something odd about those same white liberals, along with the politicians and pundits who cater to their sensibilities, insisting that rising crime rates are a figment of our imagination.”
Hamid includes a quote from the progressive Guardian website that encapsulates how tone deaf some liberals can be: “Even after an estimated 25% single-year increase in homicides, Americans overall are much less likely to be killed today than they were in the 1990s.” So, that’s supposed to make me feel better?
Newly-elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, made combating crime a cornerstone of his campaign last year, winning support from moderate Democrats by addressing the wave of violence besetting the city. Some New Yorkers say they elected Adams, who is black, because they trust that his background will enable him to achieve the challenging balance between justice and safety. But illustrating Hamid’s point, the leftist Politico website ran an article titled “Eric Adams’ war against crime sparks Democratic unrest.”
If Biden is serious about addressing the country’s crime wave, he could travel to New York and appear arm in arm with Adams and with other embattled mayors around the country. Then again, Biden may choose to stay away so as not to rile his progressive base.
Caught between competing political priorities, Biden’s words alone are not likely to convince this fall’s voters that Democrats are serious about combatting crime. Republican candidates across the country are looking forward to yet another issue with which to tar their opponents.
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