An “analysis” in The Washington Post this week apparently sought to discredit a claim by President Donald Trump about violence in Democrat-controlled cities and ended up proving him correct.
The Post noted that Trump has sought to portray Democrats as soft on crime as part of his re-election strategy and pointed out the following quote from Trump on Wednesday: “You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other — other cities, all Democrat run. Every one of them is Democrat run. Twenty out of 20. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat run.”
The Post reported:
It’s not clear how Trump is defining “most dangerous” in this context. So let’s look at two related sets of data compiled by the FBI: most violent crime and most violent crime per capita.
The most recent data to that effect is from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report covering the first half of 2019. The cities with the most violent crimes are many of the most populous cities in the country, as you might expect. Those with the highest rates of violent crime are from a range of different states.
The Post then included a graphic (featured below) in their report that showed that overall 17 out of the top 20 cities with the most violent crime have Democrat mayors, while two have independent mayors, and one has a Republican mayor.
The graphic also showed that per capita, Democrats controlled 19 out of the top 20 most violent cities with independents controlling one and Republicans controlling none.
For tweet embedding purposes, here is the graph cited in The Washington Post's report titled: “Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.” pic.twitter.com/FeAskhbnDM
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 27, 2020
“Trump would no doubt shrug at that detail, decrying as ‘fake news’ the revelation that his assertion was only slightly wrong,” Washington Post blogger Philip Bump wrote. “And, in fairness, it actually doesn’t matter that four of the 32 cities listed above have non-Democratic mayors — because it doesn’t really matter that the other mayors are Democrats.”
Violence has surged in major cities across the U.S. in recent weeks — including in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles just to name a few — as far-left activists have demonized law enforcement officials and called for defunding police departments in response to the death of George Floyd.
Violent rioters have also plagued streets across the U.S. in recent days as they try to destroy statues and monuments.
The Daily Wire reported:
In recent days, extremists have destroyed statues of former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, and attempted to destroy the statue of former President Andrew Jackson before being stopped by law enforcement.
Statues of the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a notable person from the Catholic church, and a Holocaust memorial have also been destroyed in recent days.
Trump signed an executive order yesterday that protects monuments while Attorney General William Barr created a new task force to go after violent anti-government extremists.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.