I & I Editorial BoardUPDATED AND REVISED (SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM)
“I want to present some facts to the president of the United States, and I imagine this is alarming to the president to learn these facts.” – California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In one of his endless attempts to grab a headline, California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week taunted President Donald Trump, saying that if he’s serious about fighting crime, he should be sending the National Guard to red states such as Louisiana, which has a murder rate far higher than California.
Newsom’s attempt to troll the president failed on Sunday, when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took the attention-starved governor up on his offer.
“Absolutely,” she said on “Face the Nation,” when asked if the Trump administration would send National Guard troops into cities or states run by Republicans. “Every single city is evaluated for what we need to do there to make it safer.”
But even if Trump were to follow up on this, he’d likely still end up sending National Guard troops almost exclusively into Democratic strongholds.
Not for political reasons. But because the most crime-infested parts of the country are almost entirely run by Democrats.
Here are some facts about crime that might be alarming to the governor of California.
Are you listening Gavin?
- Of the 20 cities with the highest homicide rates in the country, 12 are located in red states, but only one currently has a Republican mayor.
- And while Shreveport, La, currently has a Republican mayor, a Republican has run the city only 11 of the past 152 years.
- It’s been 50 years since Birmingham, Alabama, last had a Republican mayor.
- The last time there was a Republican mayor in St. Louis, Mo., was 1949.
- Atlanta hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1879; New Orleans, hasn’t seen one since 1872.
- In Indianapolis, the homicide rate has been elevated ever since Democrats gained control of the mayorship in 2017. From 2010 through 2016, the annual number of homicides in the city averaged around 120. Since then, it’s averaged 201.
- The Republican mayor of Dallas, Eric Johnson, ran twice as a Democrat and switched to the GOP less than two years ago.
Well, you might ask, what does it matter who the mayor is? The reason it matters is that crime is local. And local law enforcement is what matters.
“Your public safety as a resident is dramatically impacted by your district attorney, by your police department, and by whether the local politicians support and adequately fund the police and prosecutor’s offices,” noted a Heritage Foundation research paper from 2022.
See also: Care To Guess How Many Of The Safest Cities In The U.S. Have A Democratic Mayor?
It doesn’t matter where these cities are located. If Democrats run them, it’s more likely than not that residents are stuck with local prosecutors who won’t prosecute crimes, police departments that are understaffed and demoralized, criminals who, if they are caught at all, get released on cashless bail, and political machines that keep these Democrats in power, decade after miserable decade.
Dallas’ Mayor Johnson said it best when he switched to the GOP. “The future of America’s great urban centers depends on the willingness of the nation’s mayors to champion law and order and practice fiscal conservatism. Our cities desperately need the genuine commitment to these principles (as opposed to the inconsistent, poll-driven commitment of many Democrats) that has long been a defining characteristic of the GOP.”
These are the facts, Gavin. And they are, indeed, alarming. They are an alarming indictment of those who, for far too long, have maintained an iron grip on our once great cities.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Editor’s note: Several readers pointed out that the original table did not include several cities with high homicide rates. The original table was drawn from a study by the Rochester Institute of Technology that compared homicide rates in 24 select cities, not necessarily those with the highest homicide rates. The updated table includes those plus 12 other cities with the highest homicide rates. (All of the cities listed have homicide rates higher than the national average.) We have also updated the text to account for the new chart. We deeply regret any confusion caused by the original chart and text.
Politics is the the art of the con-and Democrats, especially on the city level-are better at it than Republicans.
I live in a suburb of Cincinnati and the murder rate has risen spiritedly ever since our last Republican mayor (an African American incidentally) was elected in 1979-1980.
In 2024 the murder rate in Cincy was over 20; in 1980 it was around 8-9, when the Honorable Kenneth Blackwell was the mayor.
It amazes me that people, even after experiencing rising crime, vote for the party that escorts that rising crime in.
Why does the electorate vote for the Democrats? Because the Democrats are better at talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Like the products that are sugar-laden cereals, we know the sugar is bad for us, but it tastes so good. Moreover, it is advertised so well that the majority of the electorate (in this case) buys it “circus and mirrors” con.
Why do they keep voting Democratic mayors in? Because-as Barnum said-“a sucker is born every minute” and the suckers overwhelmingly out weigh the non-suckers.
Your source does not state that these are the 20 cities with the highest homicide rates. The cities have been selected on the basis of avaiability of data and many ciçties with high homicide rates are left out. Why can US conservatives never learn to use data honestly?
Those ‘Omitted’ Cities are ALSO Dem controlled, and it was BIDEN who made reporting voluntary and not mandatory so his stats could look better. What’s your point here?
I’d be intereted in knowing what cities you are referring to. Thanks in advance.
The chart is clearly labeled “Homicide rate.”
What cities are left out?
Ollie, you missed the point. What is troubling, is why?
You make a fair point. We have updated the chart and the text. The result is the same.
No, the text is still incorrect. These are simply cities selected by the researchers for their purposes, there are tens of cities with higher rates than those in the table.
It is the dishonest dems that deceive the country when they claim crime is down in democrat run cities. Crime is up – although the statistics appear to be down because the dem’s soft on crime policies do not reflect the facts that their defund the police agenda has reduced manpower in many of those cities and dem mayors have no intentions of enforcing the law anyway, so police departments are told to refrain from executing certain duties. Dem AGs and DAs refuse to prosecute most crimes, so the criminals are released back into the communities to commit further heinous acts. The small percentage that are prosecuted may find themselves before a leftist judge who will sentence them to house arrest or probation. This is how they make it appear that crime is low when the truth is that it is not even reported.
Didn’t the Dallas mayor convert from Democrat?
Yes, a fact that is noted in the editorial.
Newsom proves once again he has no business being a Governor, much less considering the U.S. Presidency. He screams from mountaintops, and reality slaps him down.
I wonder how many police departments are “fudging” their crime data to make it look like crime is decreasing. There have been Washington DC Police Department whistleblowers that have claimed it is happening there. The homicide rates in the table should really have a “greater than or equal to” sign in front of the number.
The left makes everything political. Their motives are purely political in nature, and not in the last 50 years has anything to do with the Nations safety, protection and the well being of Americans. It is about the politician’s allegiance to the Party. And, believe the ends justifies their means (winning elections). Republicans, on the otherhand, call out the flawed and fake Republicans. Less tolerant of wrongdoing, and misconduct. It also appears they are less emotionally driven. Perhaps it explains why true Conservatives and most Republicans take the high road, and are willing to take a beating by the media. Which is frustrating and has cost the Party dearly over the years. Seeing is believing.
I disagree. In the 60s and 70s, the Dems did some really good things with civil rights and equality that Repubs didn’t like. The Dems quickly went completely overboard with the politics of equality until we got to where we are now. I think that the Repubs in that age were the impediment to progress in a way that thee Dems are now. If only the members of both parties could come together and do some good for the country, we might start really solving some problems. As if . . . .
During the 50s and 60s Republicans were much more unified in their support for Civil Rights than Democrats. Eisenhower tried passing the legislation but was thwarted by Democrats. A greater percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights act than Democrats. Ironically, LBJ gets credit for it … and he was the biggest opponent during the 50s and 60s … but, he was an opportunist … he theorized that he could get African-Americans (though he used another word for them) to vote Democrat for the next hundred years if he could get the credit for it … and he could get credit because by that time the Democrats had taken control of the education system and so history has been “taught” by the “victors.”
I’m a Republican and sympathetic to the point of view expressed in this article. But is this a correlation fallacy? Are high crime cities high crime because they are run by Democrats, or are they run by Democrats because they are high crime, or is there a third reason–such as poverty–as to why these cities have both high crime and Democrat leadership? Or, to put it another way, what basis do we have to conclude that these cities have high crime because their leaders are Democrats?
Even if it is “coincidental”, rather than “causative”, one asks even while knowing the answer, “how is it that Democrat, high crime cities have common traits such as DA’s that refrain from prosecuting certain crimes, understaffed and/or poorly funded police departments, city policies that encourage certain crimes such as the now repudiated $900 bar (prox) for shoplifting, self-declared “sanctuary” status and higher populations of gangs and gang activity, openly declared hostility toward federal law enforcement and the failure to cooperate with those entities, a general loss of industry and revenue, and a couple of other unmentionable factors that political correctness disallows but stares us full in the face.
Democrats are just mayors of an overwhelming majority of cities (78 to 16, the rest are independents), because for various reasons city residents vote predominantly for Democrats. It should be expected that they would be significantly overrepresented. There is also a weaker correlation with affluence/population.
Rules for comment should be free speech period, if you want to get it right and abide by the 1st amendment. Your extreme left wing censorship is not correct. As for the article, good piece that highlights the need for common sense right side political leaders. Review and block my free speech if you wish but it does not mean I am not right
That tells you what type of voters are voting. Oh, your responsibility when you vote is to choose the best qualified!!!!!!
This is classic base rate fallacy. 78% of 100 biggest cities in the U.S. are ruled by Democratic mayors. That is, the majority of ALL mayors are Democratic. Thus it should not surprise us that in any given narrower dataset (e.g. the cities with highest crime) the majority of mayors would be Democratic.
Also, why e.g. Forth Worth (with a Republican mayor) is not on the list, given that in 2024 the homicide rate was 12.6, so it was higher than LA? Come to think of it, why Memphis (with a Dem mayor) is not on the list at all, when it has a rate of 40.9? When you cross-check other sources, you can see that there are literally dozens of other cities with homicide rates higher than those in the table. How could that be? Well, let me check your source: you claim that this is a list of 20 cities with the HIGHEST homicide rates, while the report clearly states that these are 24 SELECT cities. Oops. ‘I&I research’, you say?
Your twisted theory fails to include the fact that dem politicians and
their underlings have no recourse but to follow the demands of the party’s agenda. That agenda includes a soft on crime policy that excludes law and order, common sense, and justice. Less arrests, rarer prosecutions, and zero accountability for crimes committed = false statistics + more crime.
I have pointed out that the post commits base rate fallacy. You have decided to reply, quite obviously not understanding what I even refer to. Why would you do that? It is never too late to educate oneself.
Gavin Newscumis a lying, cheating, crooked, vile, slimy snake-oil salesman. Never believe a word that comes out of that dirt-bags mouth.
Your lack of analytical skills are showing.
The data shows that the cities with the highest crime rates are run by democrats and the cities with the lowest crime rates are run by democrats? Exactly how does that suggest that democrats are less capable of controlling crime than republicans? A more meaningful comparison would be of state violent crime statistics, but that would unfortunately not reflect well on the republican’s argument.
But the real point is that Trump’s very selective use of national guard troops has nothing to do with reducing crime. If it was we’d be seeing troops in Birmingham, St Louis and Memphis. Instead we see troops in LA, DC, and Chicago (soon). These cities are no worse than middle of the pack in terms of your own cited statistics, and LA appears to be the best run city of all.
So I went ahead and did the state level analysis I suggested and was somewhat surprised by the results. 4 of the worst 5, and 7 of the worst 10 performing states for per capita murder rate had republican governors. but so did 4 of the best 5 and 7 of the best 10. States led by democratic governors tended to be congregated in the middle of the pack. The only obvious correlation I could see in the state level data was geographic in nature. The worst performing states were in the south (particularly the southeast excluding Florida). The best performing states were in the upper midwest.
To better illustrate the fallacy: out of 16 U.S. cities with rapid transit systems 13 have Democratic mayors and ONLY ONE has a Republican mayor. Does that mean that Republicans do not care for public transportation?
This has been a Democrat talking point that Republican run states have the highest murder rates. They conveniently forget to mention that the cities inside those states with the highest murder rates are all Democrat run.
DON’T forget the $oro$ DA’s, with no bail programs(UNLESS you’re white/Christian/male)
So send the national guard to New Orleans 😉 No? Didn’t think so. Glass jaw, glass house, glass everything. Your world view is only allowed to exist because Dems are staged opposition. A swift breeze would shatter your world.
Dear Governor Nuisance start sending the Criminal’s to prison instead of innocent Citizens or Armed Self Defense Law abiding American Citizens
This all ignores the reality that crime is down overall since the 1970s and 1980s. It also ignores the impact Covid-19 had, especially on the crime rate. This is purely agenda-driven drivel, frankly. It also fails to note that most of the cities in the list are in Republican states, and that their policies are generally drivers of poverty and, as a result, class-derived crimes.
Crime is a complex issue; filled with inconsistencies in theories and data. It needed a better analysis than was done here — an analysis that would be too long for an editorial item. Yet, the reaction of politicians and partisan voters to the mere mention that Democrat cities are a mess is interesting in its own right.
As soon as Republicans mention that Democrat cities are crime heavy, Democrats decide that it isn’t the mayor and city government that matter, but rather the political affiliation of the state Governor.
Current crime, if we accept the average values from cities and states, appears to have declined a lot since the 1960s-1980s. One theory was that the crime cohort, young males from midteens to thirty or so, declined, but Gene Epstein showed that there was no such decline.
One problem is the data itself. We are looking at “average” values taken over large populations that are inhomogeneous. Crime is usually a concentrated problem by locality, even within an urban area, and by population characteristics within that concentrated area.
An average over the entire State of California, with its very large population and many crime-free areas, is not at all pertinent to the topic of crime in the worst parts of Los Angeles. It is somewhat like the misleading optimistic annual capacity factor of wind energy systems (about 40%) when we know that wind can go to zero output about one-half of each week.
Crime also has quite a lot to do with tolerance for social disorder — i.e. tolerance for unruly youths leads to youths running amok for which the most effective response is usually a curfew. Denver makes a good example here because it is close by and I lived there for a long time. Since COVID, and during the Biden Administration, there was a growing tolerance for social disorder which is now plainly visible on the streets of Denver and has diffused into the suburbs. The disorder in Aurora, though, is different from that in downtown Denver. Lumping all together doesn’t help to understand the issue.