The Left’s Desperate Attempt To Deflect on Crime

COMMENTARY Crime and Justice

The Left’s Desperate Attempt To Deflect on Crime

Aug 4, 2023 4 min read

Commentary By

Charles “Cully” Stimson @cullystimson

Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Meese Center

Zack Smith @tzsmith

Senior Legal Fellow, Meese Center for Legal Studies

Police investigate the scene where as many as 14 people were reported to have been shot on October 31, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

In recent weeks, the Biden administration and its allies in the corporate media have been attempting to deflect attention from America’s ongoing crime crisis.

The left knows that it is its policies that have led to the increase in crime in most cities since 2016 and now they are politically vulnerable.

But it’s hard to hide dead bodies, shuttered stores, videos of looting in broad daylight, and rampant criminal activity in major Democratic-run cities.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration and its allies in the corporate media have been attempting to deflect attention from America’s ongoing crime crisis. Exhibit A: an article by the impulsively liberal Axios titled “GOP’s crumbling case against Biden on crime.”

This comes on the heels of a similarly vacuous “report” by Third Way, which acknowledged that there is a homicide problem, but claimed it is actually in “red states” that voted for former President Donald Trump.

The truth is that crime rates have been rising in blue cities since 2016 because of progressive, pro-criminal, anti-police policies. And when you remove the progressive-run blue cities from the equation, states’ relative rankings on homicide change dramatically, disproving Third Way’s attempt to blame red-state governors.

Regular Americans, especially the minorities who often live the reality of high crime rates every day, don’t believe the liberal media’s lies. Indeed, they know whom to blame: blue-city prosecutors and, more specifically, George Soros-funded or -inspired prosecutors.

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As we pointed out in a recent paper, 27 of the 30 cities with the highest murder rates are run by Democrats. And 14 of those cities—accountable for 68% of the homicides—have rogue district attorneys backed or inspired by Mr. Soros.

Those prosecutors have enacted pro-criminal, anti-victim policies, as we explain in detail in our book, “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities.”

Which raises the question: Why the constant drumbeat and attempt to flip the narrative?

Answer: Because the left knows that it is its policies that have led to the increase in crime in most cities since 2016 and now they are politically vulnerable. In poll after poll after poll after poll, the issue of crime is on voters’ minds, just behind the economy.

And no one believes for one second that Republicans, independents or law-and-order Democrats support pro-criminal, anti-victim, police-hating policies … because they don’t.

Indeed, even liberal Democrats in San Francisco and Baltimore threw out their rogue prosecutors, Chesa Boudin and Marilyn Mosby respectively, in recent elections because of skyrocketing crime rates in their cities.

And the first Soros rogue prosecutor, Kim Foxx of Chicago, was shoved off the political stage earlier this year by the Democratic machine because they know that her policies, which they secretly endorse, have caused homicides, rapes and thefts to rise to heights not seen since the early 1990s.

Rather than trying to solve the problem, though, Democrats want to trick voters.

But it’s hard to hide dead bodies, shuttered storesvideos of looting in broad daylight, and rampant criminal activity in major Democratic-run cities.

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What the Axios story and others don’t tell you is that in Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other cities with rogue prosecutors, rates of crime, including homicide, were at historic highs last year. So, any minor dip in crime rates so far this year in those cities is nothing to brag about.

Neither Axios nor Third Way nor any of the other outlets engaged in this deceptive attempt to flip the political narrative and blame Republicans for increased crime rates defend the “merits” of defunding the police, rogue prosecutors’ menu of pro-criminal policies, disregarding victims’ rights, or the scourge of not asking for bail.

Why not?

If they’re so great, and lower crime rates based on the hilarious (and false) assertion that “data and science” back up these policies, why not dig in and offer a full-throated defense?

Because deep down they know that these policies don’t ensure public safety and are defensible only in a Marxist, equity-oriented framework that most Americans reject.

So, the next time you see an eye-catching headline about how crime is not as bad as so-and-so wants you to believe, or that rising crime rates and the dystopian hellholes that have been created in inner cities are the fault of Republicans, you’ll know what is really happening and why.

This piece originally appeared in The Washington Times