On the domestic violence front, a survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 75 percent of extremist domestic homicides between 2012 and 2021 were committed by the right and only 4 percent by the left.
Finally about BLM: the protests were in fact overwhelmingly peaceful. Yes, there was arson and looting, with total property damage typically estimated at $1 billion to $2 billion. That may sound like a lot, but America is a big country, so it needs to be put into perspective.
Here’s a point of comparison. In April, Texas governor Greg Abbott pulled a political stunt on the border with Mexico, temporarily imposing additional security checks that slowed traffic, disrupted trade and led to many spoiled products. Total economic losses are estimated at about $4 billion; that is, a few days of border security theater appears to have caused more economic damage than a hundred days of mass protests.
But pointing out these facts probably won’t change many people’s minds. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any way to change the perception, also referenced in that Post article, that a lax attitude toward law enforcement has turned America’s major cities into dangerous hell. It’s true that violent crime increased during the pandemic, but it increased about as much in rural America as it did in urban areas. And despite that recent rise, violence in many cities is much lower than it was not so long ago.
In New York City, the homicide rate so far this year is slightly below the 2021 level, and in 2021 they were 78 percent lower than in 1990 and a quarter lower than in 2001. As Bloomberg’s Justin Fox has documented, New York City York is actually a lot safer than America in a small town. Los Angeles has also seen a big long-term decline in homicide rates, as has California as a whole. Some cities, particularly Philadelphia and Chicago, are back to or above the homicide rate of the early 1990s, but they aren’t representative of the bigger picture.
But who on the Republican base will recognize this reality? Whenever I talk about New York’s relative safety, I get a wave of mail that basically says, “You really can’t believe that.”