Memo to the media: GOP policies -- not the rare liberal prosecutors -- are driving crime

[marmar]

Memo to the media: GOP policies — not the rare liberal prosecutors — are driving crime
Rising crime is a national problem, escalated by Trump policies that Democrats haven't been able to repeal

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
PUBLISHED JUNE 8, 2022 1:19PM


(Salon) Asure sign of how distorted American politics have become: The average news consumer may very well be more likely to know the name of the progressive prosecutor in San Francisco than the name of their own congressional representative. That's because Republican propagandists have centered Chesa Boudin, and their successful effort to recall him in San Francisco, in their story about American crime. The mainstream media, meanwhile, has duly played along. Los Angeles had a similarly distressing electoral outcome in a too-close-to-call mayoral race between Democrat Karen Bass and Republican Rick Caruso, who switched party affiliations just to tank the Democratic primary.

"Democrats tested on crime," blared the headline at the Washington Post.

"California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime," declared the New York Times.

It's a compelling story, this tale of a city electing a progressive prosecutor in a bout of wokeness, and then reeling him back after watching crime explode as a result. Certainly, that's the story that Republicans have been hyping, especially on Fox News, which nightly portrays liberal cities as dystopian hellholes where everyone is getting raped and mugged every time they leave the house. But it also happens not to be true.

As Paul Waldman of the Washington Post notes, similarly-sized cities with "Republican mayors and Republican chief prosecutors" have even worse murder rates than San Francisco. In fact, violent crime is more of a red state problem than a blue state one, as 8 out of the 10 states with the highest murder rates voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The murder rate in the 25 states that went for Trump is, on average, 40% higher than that of states that voted for Joe Biden. But, as Waldman notes, the mainstream media ignores this cold statistical evidence in favor of the right-wing framework that pins the blame on liberal prosecutors. Liberal prosecutors are exceedingly rare even in Democratic cities and, as in San Francisco, often helm cities with lower crime rates than their "tough-on-crime" counterparts. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/06/08/memo-to-the-media-policies---not-the-rare-liberal-prosecutors--are-driving/