Down in the polls following the flawed Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Republicans dusted off their old political playbook: Scare the bejesus out of voters over crime.
Never mind that the Grand Old Party’s candidates haven’t offered much in the way of sustainable solutions beyond platitudes about “law and order.” Also left unsaid: Republicans refuse to pass basic gun safety measures supported by most Americans. No doubt crime is up across the country, but murder rates are higher in many red states (where gun laws tend to be more lax) than in blue states.
To be sure, Democrats seem inept at responding to the attacks. Even after leading a bipartisan effort to pass the most significant gun safety measure in a generation in June, Democrats are playing defense on crime as Election Day nears.
This should not come as a surprise. The Republican crime trope dates back to at least Calvin Coolidge. Richard Nixon added racial fears to his “law and order” campaign with his so-called “Southern strategy.” George H.W. Bush took the racially charged politics of crime to a new low with his Willie Horton attack ad.
Donald Trump did away with the dog whistles and said the bigoted part out loud, targeting Mexican immigrants for “bringing drugs,” “bringing crime,” and being “rapists.” Trump stoked the race and crime rhetoric throughout his one term that culminated in the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Now, Republicans have turned once again to attacking Democrats on crime.
The GOP has been aided by its loyal partner, Fox News. In particular, Tucker Carlson — who routinely whips white viewers into a lather by talking up “criminal mobs” and slandering immigrants — used his Aug. 19 show to urge Republicans to focus on “law and order” to create a “red wave.” In the weeks that followed, the tail wagged the dog as Republican candidates flooded the airwaves with advertising centered on crime.
Mehmet Oz, the television doctor from New Jersey turned Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, has been talking up crime and drugs in Philadelphia. Polls have tightened as Oz attacked his opponent, John Fetterman, as soft on crime because, as chairman of the state Board of Pardons, he pushed for clemency for some incarcerated people.
However, Oz, a wealthy political neophyte, fails to mention that he doesn’t have a clue about how to reduce crime. When asked what he would do about the gun crisis in Philadelphia, Oz pointed to the collapse of public education and said Congress should allocate funding for school vouchers. That is some bank shot.
In 2019, when he was still a celebrity doctor, Oz called for a ban on assault rifles. Now, he boasts about owning guns and opposes gun safety measures, including background checks.
The reality is Republican lawmakers talk tough on crime but do nothing to curb America’s gun culture.
In May, after 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans in the Pennsylvania House blocked a bill that would have banned owning, selling or making high-capacity, semi-automatic firearms.
In June, Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate stiff-armed a bill that would have prevented anyone under the age of 21 from buying an assault rifle. That same month, every Republican U.S. member of Congress from Pennsylvania except one voted against the gun safety bill that President Joe Biden signed into law.
The hypocrites just keep on coming.
In New York, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin ran a campaign ad against his opponent with a voice-over that said, “You are looking at actual violent crime caught on camera in Kathy Hochul’s New York.” But half of the clips in the video were filmed before Hochul became governor, and one clip is from an incident in California.
During a gubernatorial debate in Oklahoma last month, Democratic candidate Joy Hofmeister pointed out that violent crime rates were higher in the Sooner State than in New York and California. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said, “That’s not true,” and laughed.
When the Fox News affiliate in Oklahoma fact-checked Hofmeister’s claim, it found that she was correct: Oklahoma’s murder rate was almost 50% higher than California’s, and almost double New York’s.
Republicans may be good at producing attack ads, but are little help when it comes to keeping America safe.
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