Steve Benen: NBC News reported recently, for example, "that crime in the U.S. declined significantly in 2023, continuing a post-pandemic trend and belying widespread perceptions that crime is rising." Last week, the Justice Department released some preliminary data on this year's figures, which also showed significant improvements in violent and property crimes in every region of the country. Prominent Republicans, however, aren't just reluctant to celebrate the good news, they're also pretending that it doesn't exist.
The Washington Post's Catherine Rampell noted soon after that murder rates in 2024 "are on track to be at or below what they were every year of Donald Trump's presidency."The Democrats' universal message across the board should be - Republicans lie, just like their leader has over 30,000 documented times. Believe what they say at your own risk and peril.
On NBC News' "Meet the Press," for example, Rep. Byron Donalds told viewers, "I think it's important for people to understand your murder rate may be down, but that doesn't mean that violent crime, et cetera, are also lower."
But violent crime, et cetera, really are lower.
Sen. Tim Scott, another leading candidate for the GOP ticket, appeared on ABC News' "This Week," and told guest host Jonathan Karl: Under Joe Biden, we've seen the movement to defund the police, leaving communities like the one I grew up in devastated and ravaged by a wave of violent crime that we have not seen literally in five decades."
As the South Carolina Republican really ought to know, there's been no effort to defund law enforcement - except, that is, among Scott's GOP colleagues in Congress - and the idea that violent crime rates have reached a five-decade high is the opposite of reality.
The problem, of course, is not just that Republicans are lying. The broader significance of this is that many Americans don't know that they're lying, and the public has embraced assertions with no basis in reality.
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