Law and order became a flash point in this year’s presidential election. And it looks like voters were not wrong to have some anxiety about rising crime—2015 was the first year that saw an increase in homicides in a decade, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting a significant uptick in homicides is occurred in most big cities this year:
Trump specifically campaigned on doing something about homicides, though the media repeatedly tried to downplay the problem. In a bit of Trumpian rhetorical excess, he claimed at one point that the murder rate is the “highest it’s been in 45 years.” That’s obviously untrue. Even with the increase in murders over the last two years, the murder rate is still much lower than it was decades ago.
Other claims Trump made, however, were pretty accurate. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention Trump said, “Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years.” Here’s the actual citation on that stat from the Washington Post’s Wonkblog: “The number of homicides in the country’s 50 largest cities rose nearly 17 percent last year, the greatest increase in lethal violence in a quarter century.” For utterly bizarre reasons of dishonesty and pettifogging, PolitiFact rated this claim of Trump’s only “half-true.” (Seriously, read the PolitiFact ruling with an eye toward how much of what they’re saying is specifically geared toward homicides, rather than irrelevant and extraneous commentary on other kinds of crime.)
But setting aside Trump’s own misleading bouts of rhetorical excess on crime, it appears that he was keen to zero in on the issue of rising homicides. The overall facts do suggest rising homicides are a cause for concern and voters were likely aware of the problem, in spite of the efforts of media organizations such as PolitiFact to downplay what’s been happening.
