Trump’s Claims Of Ocean Of Crime Under Biden Are All Lies, Propaganda
Americans believe in fairy tales and they just love politicians who tell fairy tales, like the fable that the 2020 presidential election was fixed and that trump was robbed; or the one that insists that the economy was way better under trump; or the yarn about peace-loving Americans who went for a stroll in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; or that we are being invaded by hoards of foreigners who speak a language that nobody ever heard of; or the big one, trump’s fantasy that we live in a crime-infested nation but that crime dropped during the trump-MAGA years.
Sorry, Sleeping Beauty, crime went up, way up, when trump was in the White House. This is not to say that Americans live in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood; for that the numbers suggest moving to Iceland. But we are also not living in a dystopian nightmare of crime; that distinction belongs to life in Afghanistan.
Let’s take a look at the crime rates in the U.S., which rose between 2019 and 2020, in the twilight of trump’s reign of misinformation. MAGA claims about safety under trump also come up short when considering the nation’s overall safety. The U.S. ranked 129th in the Global Peace Ranking for 2022, continuing a fall in safety rankings every year since 2016, a drop usually attributed to a decrease in life satisfaction, rising political division, and an increasing wealth gap.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the U.S. murder rate rose 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year increase since at least 1905, and possibly ever. Experts said the 1905figures were at least partly because more states submitted data to the national death registry, as opposed to an actual rise in murders. The FBI reported similar murder rates to the CDC findings.
The CDC tracks murders by analyzing information in death certificates. The FBI tallies murders by collecting information from thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country.
According to the CDC, there were 7.8 homicides for every 100,000 people in the United States in 2020, up from six homicides per 100,000 people the year before. To be clear, the rise in the nation’s murder rate last year was far less than the 20 percent increase measured in 2001, which was driven by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
The FBI reported there were 21,570 murders in 2020, up 29 percent from 16,669 in 2019 and the highest annual total since 1995.
In most states, murder rates were up between 2019 and 2020, including eight states where murder rates rose by 40 percent or more in 2020. Contrary to trump’s deceptions, the largest increases were in the red states of Montana (up 84 percent); South Dakota (up 81 percent) and Kentucky (up 61 percent). Blue Delaware’s murder rate jumped by 62 percent.
Higher-than-average increases were spread among heavily populated, blue and red states, including New York (up 47 percent); Pennsylvania (up 39 percent), Illinois (up 38 percent); Ohio (up 38 percent); and California (up 36 percent).
The number of murders involving firearms shoots out any Republican falsehoods that deny links between guns and murder. Firearms were involved in 77 percent of murders for which data was available in 2020, up from 73 percent in 2019, according to the FBI.
The overall increase in gun deaths since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates an especially tragic rise in gun deaths among children and teens under the age of 18. Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50 percent in just two years, from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.
Murder was not the only violent crime that went up between 2019 and 2020 as aggravated assaults rose nearly 12 percent during the period.
Murders with guns went up sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing 45 percent between 2019 and 2021, while the number of gun suicides rose 10 percent during that span.
Experts say the reasons for the increases in murders and aggravated assaults may range from the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions to routines, to a breakdown of police-community relations to an increase in the number of guns purchased.
While the murder rate rose, it still was below the levels of the early 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
MAGA propaganda, exaggerations and outright lies about crime rates have taken a toll on Americans. A July 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that 61 percent of U.S. adults said violent crime is a very big problem in the country today, up from 41 percent in June 2020 and the highest percentage measured since at least the fall of 2018.
The CDC also found that more Americans died of gun-related injuries, both murders and suicides, in 2021, President Joe Biden’s first year in office, than in any other year on record. Again the numbers were still below levels of earlier decades.
The CDC found that in 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. The total excludes deaths in which gunshot injuries played a contributing, but not principal, role.
The use of guns in suicides has long outnumbered the number of guns that led to murders. In 2021, 54 percent of all gun-related deaths. were suicides (26,328) and 43 percent were murders (20,958). Guns were by far the favored weapon in homicides as about eight in 10 murders in 2021, 20,958 out of 26,031, or 81 percent, involved a firearm. That was the highest percentage since at least 1968.
More than half of all suicides in 2021, 26,328 out of 48,183, or 55 percent, also involved a gun, the highest percentage since 2001.
The number of gun deaths also has gone up under President Joe Biden. The record 48,830 total gun deaths in 2021 reflect a 23 percent increase since 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Red states had the highest rate of gun fatalities in 2021. Including murders, suicides and all other categories tracked by the CDC, Mississippi led with 33.9 per 100,000 people; followed by Louisiana (29.1), New Mexico (27.8), Alabama (26.4) and Wyoming (26.1).
The states with the lowest total rates were all blue and included Massachusetts (3.4), Hawaii (4.8), New Jersey (5.2), New York (5.4) and Rhode Island (5.6).
Gun murder rates in 2021 were highest in the District of Columbia (22.3 per 100,000 people), Mississippi (21.2), Louisiana (18.4), Alabama (13.9) and New Mexico (11.7). The lowest gun murder rates included Massachusetts (1.5), Idaho (1.5), Hawaii (1.6), Utah (2.1) and Iowa (2.2).
Gun suicide rates in 2021 were highest in Wyoming (22.8 per 100,000 people), Montana (21.1), Alaska (19.9), New Mexico (13.9) and Oklahoma (13.7). The states with the lowest gun suicide rates were Massachusetts (1.7), New Jersey (1.9), New York (2.0), Hawaii (2.8) and Connecticut (2.9).
The Global Peace Index (GPI) ranks the safest and most peaceful countries in the world and the most dangerous. The report is published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace.
The latest report has Iceland as the safest country in the world for the 14th year in a row. The Nordic countries of Europe including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland rank among the 25 safest globally. Most of them also are listed among the top 10 happiest nations worldwide. Common attributes of the world’s safest countries include high levels of wealth, social welfare, education, effective criminal justice systems, and positive government-citizen relationships.
The top 15 safest countries include Iceland, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Austria, Singapore, Portugal, Slovenia, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Croatia, Germany, Netherlands, Bhutan, Hungary, Malaysia and Belgium.
The Global Peace Index (GPI) report evaluates 163 countries on 23 indicators like political terror and murder rate to gauge national safety levels. In 2023, global peace deteriorated by 0.42 percent as 84 countries became safer and 79 less safe, marking the 13th decline in 15 years.
The dangers rose the most in Russia and Ukraine from 2021 to 2023, primarily due to Russian invasion. Other countries with the greatest increase in danger were Haiti, Mali, and Israel, all which experienced a higher level of domestic turmoil.
Afghanistan remained the most dangerous country in 2023, despite a significant decrease in conflict-related deaths from nearly 43,000 to just over 4,000.
The 20 most dangerous countries in 2023 were, in order, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Ukraine, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Mali, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Myanmar and Nigeria.
Trump’s rhetoric linking immigrants to crime are equally bombastic and as equally misleading as his claims about less crime during his four years in office.
Early data suggests that there were cases of undocumented people committing crimes during trump’s presidency while research has found no connection between immigration and crime. Some research shows that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people born in the U.S.
Experts from two anti-immigration groups and three from organizations favorable to immigration said there is zero evidence supporting trump’s claims that immigrants are arriving in the U.S. after having been deliberately freed by foreign leaders from prisons and mental health facilities.
Again the MAGA propaganda is working. A recent Pew poll found that 57 percent of Americans said that a large number of migrants seeking to enter the country leads to more crime. Republicans (85 percent) overwhelmingly say the migrant surge leads to increased crime in the U.S. A far smaller share of Democrats (31 percent) say the same. The poll found that 63 percent of Democrats say the increase in migrants does not have much of an impact.
Trump and his Republican followers have recently used two incidents as posterchildren of what they say are Biden’s unsatisfactory immigration policies. Both references are misleading and do not represent the situation of the great majority of immigrants.
One involves Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was abducted and killed while jogging on Feb. 22 at the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Ga. Police arrested José Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan who had entered the U.S. illegally. Ibarra was charged with felony murder, false imprisonment, and kidnapping.
After the incident, trump posted on his Truth Social page, “Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens! The horrible murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley at the University of Georgia should have NEVER happened!”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., heckled Biden and shouted out that Biden should “say her name” during the president’s State of the Union address. Riley’s parents were invited to the State of the Union by Greene’s colleague, Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., but they turned down the invitation.
On March 7, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act in a 251–170 vote, with 37 Democratic members joining all Republican members in voting for the bill. The Laken Riley Act mandates federal detention of migrants who commit burglary or theft and allowed states to file suit against the federal government for failing to enforce immigration laws.
Stinging criticism of Biden’s immigration policies also were front and center in remarks by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who gave the GOP response to the State of the Union address. Britt said she had spoken to a woman who had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12.
“She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoe box of a room, and they sent men through that door over and over again for hours and hours on end,” Britt said. “We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”
Britt implied the incidents occurred since Biden took office and were a result of his policies. In fact, Britt was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero who has testified before Congress about being forced to work in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008, during the administration of President George W. Bush.
Another of trump’s favorite lies is that 571 miles were built during his presidency along the so-called “border wall.” The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service reported a total of 458 miles were built, including wall built where no barriers had existed before and wall built to replace previous barriers.
A total of 52 of the 458 miles built under trump was “primary” wall that was built in parts of the border where no barriers previously existed. The rest were 33 miles of “secondary” wall that was built where no barriers previously existed, plus 373 miles of primary and secondary wall that was built to replace previous barriers the federal government says had become “dilapidated and/or outdated,” Customs and Border Protection reported.