How Democrats can flip the crime issue against the GOP

[Nevilledog]

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EJ Dionne
@EJDionne
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The GOP is running on crime all over the country because their inflation and anti-Biden campaigning wasn’t enough—and they don’t want to talk about abortion. But Dems shouldn’t just play defense. How they can flip the crime issue against the GOP
My column

washingtonpost.com
Opinion | How Democrats can flip the crime issue against the GOP
For the past five months, Democratic strategists have been quietly preparing for the Republican onslaught on crime during the midterm elections.
2:31 PM · Sep 28, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/28/crime-midterms-democrats-dionne/

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https://archive.ph/o5go6

It was not inevitable that Republican candidates would spend the closing weeks of the 2022 midterm campaign running tens of thousands of harsh and often demagogic ads attacking Democrats on violence and policing. When summer began, Republicans figured that inflation, especially soaring gas prices, and a general disaffection with President Biden would let them glide to victory in the midterms.

But then prices at the gas pump started to fall, the conservative Supreme Court energized supporters of abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade, and Biden’s ratings started to improve as parts of his program came back to life and were passed by Congress.

“In an emergency, break glass,” the signs on old fire alarm boxes read. Republicans are hoping that this year, crime is their glass-shattering issue.

As Annie Linskey and Colby Itkowitz reported in The Post this week, GOP candidates and allied groups aired about 53,000 commercials on crime during the first three weeks of September, up from 29,000 crime ads in August.

Navin Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, saw this coming. “There was no question that come fall, Republicans would go to the same sort of playbook that they’d been using for the last 25 years, which is trying to scare voters into the Republican column by blaming Democrats for crime,” Nayak said in an interview this week. “And, you know, at a time when crime rates have actually increased across the entire country, we knew that would be even more salient.”

*snip*


Be like Gavin Newsom

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[Mr.Bill]

1. Not to mention several

republicans in Congress saying they want to defund the FBI.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MAGA Republicans in Red States made it easer to buy guns and carry them without a permit!

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[Xolodno]

3. Here in California...

...we've been undoing the whole "tough on crime" mantra, three strikes, etc. Getting tough on crime is also VERY expensive, with prisons, staff, court systems, etc. All that money channeled away from infrastructure, social services, etc.

Yes, there are crimes where people need to be incarcerated. But there are crimes where other services may help. Jail is not the only answer and having that view only makes problems worse.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Republican Red States are 7 of the top 10 states with the highest crime rates.

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[Nevilledog]

5. Fox.... Don't give us facts... That's not fair!

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Justin Baragona
@justinbaragona
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Judge Jeanine says it's not fair to note that homicide rates in "MAGA states" are much higher than in blue states.

"First of all, the governor does not control the police in individual cities and in individual states, so get off the MAGA states, that's number one!"


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2:52 PM · Sep 29, 2022