Much of modern progressivism is built around denying abject reality. Denying minimum wage hikes kill jobs. Denying a fetus is human life. Denying men and women are fundamentally different. Denying printing piles of money causes inflation. And denying law enforcement and incarceration deter crime. That’s why a recent daily newsletter from the New York Times was an interesting read.
To my surprise, the article wasn’t all leftist boilerplate. It had a liberal bent for sure, but was more thoughtful and honest than most of the crap the Times churns out. For starters, they acknowledged that the murder rate has spiked dramatically. That in itself is a little unusual. For progressives, the most common reaction to uncomfortable facts is to pretend they don’t exist. That may have been a little more difficult for the Times in this case, since their reader base is almost exclusively urban progressives. And large Democrat-controlled cities are precisely where murders, and crime in general, are spiraling out of control.
The article starts out with the obvious:
In 2020, murders in the United States spiked more than 27 percent — the largest percentage increase in at least six decades. Last year, murders went up again. Those murders resulted in the deaths of thousands more Americans, and returned the U.S. to homicide rates not seen since the mid-1990s. (While murders and violent crime overall are up, other crimes are down.)
So far, mostly so good. Although I do take umbrage with the fact that other crimes are down. I don’t believe for a second that criminal acts have gone down in the big progressive cities. What they have done is to de-criminalize criminal behavior. Things like drug dealing, shoplifting, breaking into cars, etc. are now no longer prosecuted or even considered criminal acts. It’s the classic progressive response to a problem. Instead of fixing it, they prefer to just pretend it isn’t a problem. It is the exact same approach they take to standardized tests, grades, and failing schools.
The piece continues:
The effects are felt unequally across the country. Shootings are historically concentrated in impoverished, minority communities. In a typical U.S. city, a small segment of neighborhoods account for most of the violence. Most homicide victims are Black. And Black Americans were eight times as likely to be murder victims in 2020 as their white counterparts… The violence remains a grave example of racial inequality in the U.S
It is certainly true that blacks are disproportionately the victims in murder cases. It is also true that blacks are much more likely to be the perpetrators. And that the murders are much more likely to occur in cities controlled by black Democrats that espouse racial grievance politics and buy into modern progressive theories about the causes and solutions to criminal activity. So while the author doesn’t explicitly go there, he strongly hints at the racism/white supremacy angle that people who read the New York Times believe explains literally everything.
The article then examines the historical trend:
From 1991 to 2014, America’s murder rate plummeted by more than half. Experts still don’t agree on why that happened. Among the many possibilities: mass incarceration, changes in policing, reduced exposure to lead and video games keeping more young men occupied.
Amazing the Times could bring itself to admit that mass incarceration of criminals and changes in policing could have an effect on public safety. Progressives hate the police, and accuse them of perpetuating the violence. And they believe mass incarceration is racist. Surely, there must be an explanation for the drop in murders that progressives could feel good about. Community outreach programs? Social workers? PSAs? Lead exposure and video games was the only other thing you could come up with? Yikes.
Finally, we get to the supposed causes of the murder spike:
The pandemic. Covid disrupted every aspect of life in the past two years. Social services and supports that help keep crime down vanished overnight. Schools could no longer keep unruly teens safe and distracted. A broader sense of disorder and chaos could have fueled a so-called moral holiday, in which people disregard laws and norms.
The case the author makes for blaming the covid pandemic is exceptionally weak. And even he is forced to concede that the timing doesn’t really work. What else ya got?
Changes in policing. The fallout from the 2020 racial justice protests and riots could have contributed to the murder spike. Police officers, scared of being caught in the next viral video, may have pulled back on proactive anti-violence practices…. The timing supports this theory, with homicides rising unusually quickly shortly after George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing protests. Killings also spiked in 2015 and 2016, after protests over policing during those years.
The author basically describes a Ferguson Effect on steroids, where police are cowed into not enforcing the law. I think there is definitely some truth to that. I think an even bigger factor that the author completely overlooks was the overall lawlessness and violence of the 2020 riots that the establishment normalized and even encouraged. The message to criminals could not have been clearer. Democrats did not have the will or moral certainty to protect their cities. And the author concedes that the timing of the spike coincides perfectly with the BLM rampages of 2020.
And finally, the author gets around to blaming inanimate chunks of metal for violent crimes:
More guns. Americans bought many more guns in 2020 and 2021 than they did in previous years… Research generally shows that where there are more guns, there is more gun violence.
I call total bullshit on this one. The left has been blaming guns for violent criminal activity for decades, so nothing new there. I didn’t waste my time checking out his “research” that correlates gun ownership with crime. I can say that I have seen numerous studies that show no correlation whatsoever, or even an inverse relationship between gun ownership and violent crime. From my own personal experience, I can share that I live in a more rural area that leans conservative. And like many towns across the country, our community is awash with guns. Almost everybody owns a gun where I live. And a sizable number carry them on a regular basis. Yet gun crime is virtually nonexistent. It’s not the guns.
Finally, the author gives his ideas for solutions:
In the short term, there’s solid evidence for policing — specifically, more focused policing, targeting the people and places most likely to be violent.
Holy crap, how did that one get past the Times editors??? Not only is the author calling for policing to stop the carnage, he is calling for targeted policing. Did he forget what color the “people and places most likely to be violent” are? Progressives would never support this (obvious and effective) solution. I’m surprised this guy didn’t get run out of town for even suggesting such a thing. This same mindset is exactly why progressives push for gun control but resist punishing actual gun crimes. The people breaking gun laws are disproportionally black, therefore the gun laws must be racist. Or so they reason.
The author concludes with some other ideas that progressives might find less repugnant:
In the long term, experts support a range of solutions that enrich both individuals’ and communities’ socioeconomic standing over time; they include preschool programs, summer job initiatives, raising the school dropout age, greening of vacant lots, more streetlights and expanded drug treatment. There’s also good evidence for gun control and higher alcohol taxes.
None of that stuff will do shit to prevent murders, obviously. I doubt this guy will last long at the Times. Times readers want to hear how the murder spike is due to racism and white supremacy. And this dude failed miserably.