How Democrats Hide Violent Crime with Tricky Statistics

So, let’s get this straight: Democrats are trying to rewrite history—again. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, now a proud member of Kamala Harris’ team, had the audacity to claim, “Make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump.” And Pete Buttigieg, our Transportation Secretary who somehow feels qualified to talk crime statistics, declared that crime went down under Biden and spiked under Trump. Seriously? Who are they trying to fool?

Let’s look at the facts. Between 2016 and 2020, during Trump’s presidency, violent crime actually fell by 17%. That’s right, it went down. Meanwhile, under Joe Biden’s watch, from 2020 to 2022, violent crime didn’t just rise—it soared by 43%. But if you listen to the mainstream media, you’d think everything’s just peachy.

Take Monday’s headline from Axios: “New data shows violent crime dropping sharply in major U.S. cities.” Or NPR’s earlier claim that “Violent crime is dropping fast in the US—even if Americans don’t believe it.” It’s like they’re gaslighting the entire country, telling us not to believe our own eyes.

But here’s the dirty little secret they’re not telling you: There are two ways to measure crime. The FBI’s NIBRS counts the crimes reported to the police. But the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) actually asks people if they’ve been victims of crime—whether they reported it or not.

And guess what? Since 2020, these two measures have been telling completely opposite stories. The FBI claims crime is going down, while more and more people are saying they’ve been victims. The NCVS reported a shocking 42.4% increase in violent crime in 2022—the biggest one-year jump ever recorded. Meanwhile, the FBI is over here telling us violent crime dropped by 2.1%. You don’t need to be a genius to see something doesn’t add up.

One big reason? Law enforcement in America has collapsed. In cities like New York, arrest rates for violent crime have plunged from 44% before the pandemic to a pathetic 20% in 2022. And that’s just arrests—not prosecutions, not convictions. The system is broken, and everyone knows it.

Even Elon Musk, in his Monday night chat with Trump, pointed out the obvious: “It has gotten to the point where people aren’t even bothering reporting crime because they don’t think anything is going to happen.” He’s right. Police are demoralized, departments are understaffed, and criminals are running wild.

Adding insult to injury, fewer than half of all police departments are even bothering to send complete crime data to the FBI anymore, thanks to a reporting system change in 2021. So when the media tells you that crime is dropping, remember—they’re not just missing the forest for the trees, they’re deliberately turning a blind eye to the whole thing.

Now, some critics want to point to a drop in the murder rate in 2023, claiming it proves crime isn’t as bad as it seems. Sure, murder rates dropped by 13%, but they’re still 7% higher than in 2019. And even the murder rate data is questionable. The FBI says murder peaked in 2020 and dropped afterward, but the CDC says it peaked in 2021 and stayed high in 2022.

At the end of the day, relying on the FBI’s limited data is like putting blinders on—ignoring the full scope of America’s crime problem. But maybe that’s the point. Democrats and their media allies want to soft-pedal the issue, sweep it under the rug, and hope you don’t notice. But we do notice, and we’re not buying their narrative.