As you pointed out here, the FBI's report, cited by Biden, is not supported by its own data. You further surmise that political motivations account for the variance. I agree. That may be true, and those motivations may be very real.
These are sobering times. We have a candidate who is openly hostile toward the FBI and DOJ, and communicating intent to subjugate both organizations to authoritarian control, if elected. Meanwhile the Supreme court has declared that he will enjoy absolute immunity in the conduct of his core functions, and presumed immunity for all official actions. That his motives cannot be questioned by the courts; that every communication with a subordinate (i.e. any person in the executive branch) constitutes an official act; that immunity is presumed for official acts, even if the act is illegal. The Trump agenda includes stopping any and all DOJ and FBI aid and oversight of state and local policing. Let us remind that the DOJ was created by President Grant specifically to protect the lives and rights of citizens which were being trampled upon by state and local law enforcement, in complicity and sometimes cooperation with organized hate groups.
So, we have lies on both sides. One the one hand, I paraphrase, "the election was stolen and J6 never happened, and everything was wonderful when crime was rising in 2016-2020 and Trump was saving the ACA and the economy and always telling the truth and doing nothing wrong". On the other hand "Violent crime is historically down under Biden".
Good catch, Mark! I concur with your accusation that the claim is not supported by the data to the extent it's altogether misleading.
Your point about lazy media, including fact checkers, is apt. Your review of how the data is collected was also very helpful to anyone seriously wanting to understand it, and the underlying trends it aims/purports to measure. Thank you.
I noticed while in there browsing that data is that violent crime shot up gangbusters during the period from '88 to '92. I welcome your insights on that.
Regarding the narrative, your observations about general crime, e.g., shoplifting and property crimes, were insightful and interesting, but somewhat off topic with respect to violent crime. That's all fine, and maybe I've missed some aspect of its relevance, but it seems the property crimes were conflated with the violent crimes later in the narrative. More importantly, I got the sense the narrative is biased to the point of misleading as to root causes. For instance, you cited the "[violent] BLM protests in Portland", but did not mention the violence entailed confrontation between the protesters and Trump-supporting gun activist counter protesters, wherein 1 person was killed by a Trump supporter. Also not mentioned were the Unite-the-Right protests in Charlottetown, where 1 person was run over and killed by a Trump supporter, or the tourist visit in Washington DC, where 140 law enforcement officers were assaulted by Trump supporters, or the many death threats and kidnapping attempts by Trump supporters around the country. Also not mentioned were the over 4,000 mass shootings that have occurred since 2014. How can that not be germane? And why are we even talking about AOC and the Steele Dossier. It would have been nice if the summary were more balanced.
If you look at the graph of "All violent crime", its shows, as you acknowledge in your article a clear and steady downward trend from 1992 to 2014 (on 2-year intervals), followed by a steady uptick throughout the Trump years, a sharp dip during the pandemic after which it snapped back to where it was. As you pointed out, it has been increasing again. Fortunately, the latest data shows violent crime down for 2024. This data supports an argument that Trump's leadership was toxic.
We all need to decide if we're interested in understanding and remediating the problem, or just assigning blame.
I've read COP Bill Bratton's book, "The Profession", and am currently reading a book "Ours Was the Shining Future" by David Leonhardt, which is kind of a perspective on 20th century political history, highly astute, and by no means one-sided. This exchange finds me in the middle of the chapter on "The Problem with Crime". It's complicated and defies pat explanations. As an aside, the dissection of left/right, and who's in which group and why and how that's evolved over time, has been fascinating and illuminating. I recommend the book.
Thanks again for writing this article. I applaud your calling out the gaffe-master's gaffe -- or lie. I'll call a spade a spade.
As you pointed out here, the FBI's report, cited by Biden, is not supported by its own data. You further surmise that political motivations account for the variance. I agree. That may be true, and those motivations may be very real.
These are sobering times. We have a candidate who is openly hostile toward the FBI and DOJ, and communicating intent to subjugate both organizations to authoritarian control, if elected. Meanwhile the Supreme court has declared that he will enjoy absolute immunity in the conduct of his core functions, and presumed immunity for all official actions. That his motives cannot be questioned by the courts; that every communication with a subordinate (i.e. any person in the executive branch) constitutes an official act; that immunity is presumed for official acts, even if the act is illegal. The Trump agenda includes stopping any and all DOJ and FBI aid and oversight of state and local policing. Let us remind that the DOJ was created by President Grant specifically to protect the lives and rights of citizens which were being trampled upon by state and local law enforcement, in complicity and sometimes cooperation with organized hate groups.
So, we have lies on both sides. One the one hand, I paraphrase, "the election was stolen and J6 never happened, and everything was wonderful when crime was rising in 2016-2020 and Trump was saving the ACA and the economy and always telling the truth and doing nothing wrong". On the other hand "Violent crime is historically down under Biden".
Good catch, Mark! I concur with your accusation that the claim is not supported by the data to the extent it's altogether misleading.
Your point about lazy media, including fact checkers, is apt. Your review of how the data is collected was also very helpful to anyone seriously wanting to understand it, and the underlying trends it aims/purports to measure. Thank you.
I noticed while in there browsing that data is that violent crime shot up gangbusters during the period from '88 to '92. I welcome your insights on that.
Regarding the narrative, your observations about general crime, e.g., shoplifting and property crimes, were insightful and interesting, but somewhat off topic with respect to violent crime. That's all fine, and maybe I've missed some aspect of its relevance, but it seems the property crimes were conflated with the violent crimes later in the narrative. More importantly, I got the sense the narrative is biased to the point of misleading as to root causes. For instance, you cited the "[violent] BLM protests in Portland", but did not mention the violence entailed confrontation between the protesters and Trump-supporting gun activist counter protesters, wherein 1 person was killed by a Trump supporter. Also not mentioned were the Unite-the-Right protests in Charlottetown, where 1 person was run over and killed by a Trump supporter, or the tourist visit in Washington DC, where 140 law enforcement officers were assaulted by Trump supporters, or the many death threats and kidnapping attempts by Trump supporters around the country. Also not mentioned were the over 4,000 mass shootings that have occurred since 2014. How can that not be germane? And why are we even talking about AOC and the Steele Dossier. It would have been nice if the summary were more balanced.
If you look at the graph of "All violent crime", its shows, as you acknowledge in your article a clear and steady downward trend from 1992 to 2014 (on 2-year intervals), followed by a steady uptick throughout the Trump years, a sharp dip during the pandemic after which it snapped back to where it was. As you pointed out, it has been increasing again. Fortunately, the latest data shows violent crime down for 2024. This data supports an argument that Trump's leadership was toxic.
We all need to decide if we're interested in understanding and remediating the problem, or just assigning blame.
I've read COP Bill Bratton's book, "The Profession", and am currently reading a book "Ours Was the Shining Future" by David Leonhardt, which is kind of a perspective on 20th century political history, highly astute, and by no means one-sided. This exchange finds me in the middle of the chapter on "The Problem with Crime". It's complicated and defies pat explanations. As an aside, the dissection of left/right, and who's in which group and why and how that's evolved over time, has been fascinating and illuminating. I recommend the book.
Thanks again for writing this article. I applaud your calling out the gaffe-master's gaffe -- or lie. I'll call a spade a spade.