If one was required to pick a single word that represents the Trump campaign, that word would be “fear.”
Make America Great Again is just another way of saying, “we’re afraid and we long for the good old days.” The days when it was safe to walk down the street in Anytown, USA. The days when you could go to the grocery store and not worry about getting shot in the parking lot.
The days when you could go to the movies and pick your seats based on the location of the screen and not the exits. The days when the nightly news didn’t bombard you with story after story of shootings and stabbings and robberies and rapes. If only we could return to those good old days, when crime was low.
Here’s the rub. Those good old days… Are right now.
The fact of the matter is, the narrative of fear being peddled by the GOP does not jive with the reality of the numbers. Raw Story actually did some research comparing the “good old days” of Republican demigod Ronald Reagan’s 1987 to the most recent available crime statistics under President Barack Obama, and here is what they found:
- Violent crime under Ronald Reagan in 1987 was 612 instances of violence for every 100,000 people. In 2014, the violent crime rate was 365 per 100,000, a decline of 40 percent
- Americans reported almost 320,000 fewer violent crimes in 2014 than they did in 1987
- Murder declined from 20,096 cases in 1987 to 14,249 in 2014, a drop of 30 percent
- Robbery saw a more than 50 percent decrease when adjusted for population growth when it, “declined from about 518,000 cases in 1987 to 326,000 in 2014.”
Since when do facts matter when there’s a politically expedient narrative of fear to prop up?
The Republican Party would like nothing more than for us to believe the boogeyman is right around the corner. They want Americans to believe that what we really need right now is a great protector-in-chief.
As Raw Story reported, the speeches at last week’s Republican National Convention were laced with the narrative of fear. Rudy Giuliani for example said in his speech:
“The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe. They fear for their children and they fear for themselves. They fear for our police officers who are being targeted, with a target on their back.”
He continued regarding Donald Trump:
“He will make America once again, like the president I worked for, Ronald Reagan, the shining city on the hill.”
There it is. Make America great again, just like in the good old days when Reagan was our protector-in-chief.
Of course, the despot in training himself, Donald Trump, is not hiding his motivations nor his intentions. He said in his acceptance speech:
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.”
Frightening stuff for those willing to believe it, but facts are not the same things as feelings.
Given the facts, do we really want to go back to the “good old days” of Ronald Reagan?
Here’s a video of Trump capitalizing on fear:
Featured Image By Progress Ohio/CC by 2.0 And Matthew Yglacias/CC by SA-2.0 Via Flickr
