Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Tuesday that US crime statistics are āonlyā going up. In fact, most US crime numbers went down last year ā and the decreasesĀ included one of the largest national declines in murder ever recorded.
Trumpās speech in MichiganĀ focusedĀ on crime perpetrated by people who illegally entered the US. After he said that crime in Venezuela has fallen amid a wave of emigration from the South American country ā and exaggerated the extent ofĀ Venezuelaās improvementĀ ā he added, āWouldnāt we love to have a statistic where crime is down 67%? Ours is only going in one direction.ā He pointed sharply upward with his hand.
Facts First:Ā Trumpās claim that US crime statistics are only going up is false. Murder, other kinds of reported violent crime and reported property crime allĀ dropped in 2023, according to preliminary statistics published by the FBI. Crime data expert Jeff Asher says that, if confirmed by final data, the roughly 13% decline in murder would be the single biggest one-year drop on record in US data dating back to 1960, while the roughly 6% decline in reported violent crime would be one of the biggest on record; reported violent crimeĀ declinedĀ in every quadrant of the country, in cities of all sizes and in in rural communities. In addition, as Asher hasĀ pointed out, partial urban data for early 2024 shows that the number of murders again declined sharply in the first two months of this year.
Belief is social. When you say something like āTrump is lyingā people donāt evaluate that for truth. They take it as a personal attack on their personal safety. Thatās how the brain works typically. Group membership is on par with physical safety.
The best bet is probably to find some other group where they also have membership in, and appeal to that.
So you could maybe try to convert them by appealing to patriotism , but the right wing has largely coopted that.