Some good news from the nation’s capital: Following the federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. police that was spearheaded by President Trump two weeks ago, crime in the city has decreased markedly.
That’s right: D.C. saw a noticeable drop in carjackings and robberies, and while there are obviously statistical fluctuations from week to week that might not necessarily have anything to do with policy, it’s nevertheless the case that the city has had zero homicides since Aug. 13.
And that’s the bottom line: Deploying more law enforcement resources and more police officers in accordance with the president’s wishes has given Washington a murder-free week. That should be good news, no matter what your politics are.
Unfortunately, I suspect many national Democrats — unlike local Democrats — might be frustrated that the Trump plan for crime has yielded some undeniable successes. Nobody wants there to be crime of course, but then again nobody in progressive circles wants Trump to be right about anything. Just watch how Kristen Welker of “Meet the Press” lamely tried to fact-check JD Vance during an interview over the weekend in which the vice president gave Trump credit for bringing crime under control.
“If you look, for example, at the murder rate in D.C., it rivals some of the worst cities, the most violent cities anywhere in the world. That’s a disgrace for our nation, that’s a disgrace for the residents who live in D.C., who just want to take their kids to a park or walk down Union Station, or take their family out for a bite to eat without being accosted by a vagrant or a violent capital — they should have that right. Crime has dropped over 35 percent in the nation’s capital in 10 days because of what Donald J. Trump has done.”
Vance continued, asserting that quietly accepting decline and crime and disorder in our cities is a choice — and it’s one the Trump administration is no longer going to tolerate.
“When you make such big progress in a matter of a week and a half, I think that you step on the gas and try to make D.C. even more safe. Here’s the thing, Kristen — we don’t have to live like this. My message to my fellow citizens here in D.C. or all across the country would be that allowing vagrants and armed robberies to take over your city, that’s a policy choice. What President Trump is showing is that if you just empower local law enforcement to arrest and prosecute the bad guys, we can take back American streets.”
National Democrats and the mainstream media need to recognize that that is a powerful message — and a winning message. Polls show that Americans are very concerned about the things Vance is talking about, and they want solutions.
Now it’s perfectly reasonable, even healthy, to be concerned about over-policing. Civil liberties are extremely important, and we’ve seen how government authorities can use a crisis as a pretext to implement heavy-handed measures that make our lives worse without actually improving safety: see the coronavirus pandemic for numerous examples of that. We don’t want to become a “papers, please” society where everybody has to show identification just to walk down the street, and battalions of federal troops are a fixture of every metro station and green space in the city. That’s going to lead to abuses — to innocent people who are minding their own business getting harassed or even detained for no reason.
In my Radars over the past few weeks, I’ve given you some of my ideas, which are not unique to me but rather things I’ve learned from reading about the city’s problems. We need to fix the crime lab and make sure it can process ballistics evidence, giving prosecutors the tools they need to bring cases against violent criminals. We need to appoint and confirm judges who take the crime problem in this city seriously and are accountable to the people who live here. We need to give homicide detectives more resources, and probably hire more of them. We need to better patrol the city’s green spaces and get the mentally ill and drug-addicted people occupying them into treatment programs first, before we give them public housing.
The increased federal presence, with national law enforcement working alongside local cops, has accomplished some of those goals, while others remain.
But yes, more cops mean less crime, it is, on some level that simple. If Democrats don’t like the Trump plan, what would they like to do differently? Seriously, I’m all ears! Bonus points if it actually saves the taxpayers money.
What I expect, of course, is the opposite: Dems will propose new programs, more housing for the homeless, more educational programs, more … progressivism. I don’t know if they’re still recommending abolishing the police entirely, which is an idea New York City’s likely next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was talking about as recently as five years ago.
Look, this agenda is simply not a political winner. Trump’s is. I know it, and voters know it, and deep down, Democrats probably know it too — at least the ones who actually live in the real world and have to deal with the consequences of disordered cities. Progressive elites safely ensconced within gated communities that pay for private security, like so many members of our professional media class, might actually think not doing anything about crime is in fact a fine solution. Most normal people know better.
Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.
