All in all, GOP fearmongering about crime parallels the party’s inflation alarms based on selective and outdated numbers. It can be effective, unfortunately; during 2022, Gallup found that 78 percent of Americans thought crime was higher nationally than in 2021. Turns out that just wasn’t the case.
It’s crazy how effective fear mongering is. My mom is not a conservative woman by any means. She hates Trump and his kind with a passion. But she was still captivated by the migrant caravan. It took me several weeks to get her to recognize that it was purely a story running up to the election to play on people’s fears and get their votes.