Democrats have objected to President Donald Trump‘s deployment of National Guard troops to combat violent crime in Washington, D.C. Their resistance to improving safety and lowering crime is just the latest example of their tendency to protect criminals rather than defend innocent Americans.
As hundreds of innocent people have been victimized by carjackings, shootings, burglaries, and assaults, and hundreds have been murdered in recent years, Democrats have maintained that the extra steps Trump has taken to protect innocent people are unnecessary. To support their claims, they have cited the oft-repeated claim of “crime is decreasing.” While this is true, it is also very misleading — and arguably intellectually disingenuous.
Crime in the district may have dropped, but the number of homicides in the city is still more than double what it was in 2012.
According to the Department of Justice, there were 187 homicides in 2024. Assuming that the numbers are accurate and not underreported, as crime stats in the district have been rumored to be, this was a sizable 32% drop from 2023’s homicide totals, when there were 274. However, even with this significant decrease, 2023’s homicide numbers were still more than double what they were in 2012, when the district had 88 reported homicides.
There are similar disparities in the number of robberies and sex abuse crimes in the district. In 2023, there were 191 sex abuse crimes, and in 2024, again, there was a relatively significant decrease to 143. This was a 25% drop in sex crimes in the district. However, it was still more than 2009, when there were 134 cases, the city’s lowest total in the last 30 years.
For robberies in the district, there were 3,468 in 2023. In 2024, they dropped to 2,113, a decrease of 39%. Yet, even with the drop, this was still substantially more than 2020, when there were only 1998 such crimes.
Only Democrats would celebrate such statistics and celebrate “crime dropping.”
Obviously, this raises several questions.
Does the sex abuse crime victim feel relieved that “crime is dropping” in the district? How about the innocent carjacking victim? Do these victims think “crime dropping” is a good thing? What about the family of a person murdered? How about the parents of children harmed by drug trafficking? What about innocent women who are raped? Or the innocent man burglarized? What kind of preposterous assertion that “crime is dropping” is an acceptable retort to wanting to make the country safer?
CRIME STATISTICS SHOW TRUMP’S DECISION TO DEPLOY TROOPS IN DC IS WORKING
Trump was right when he expressed shock and dismay at the Democrats’ hostilities toward his efforts. And as only Trump can, he categorized their resistance perfectly:
“These people are sick,” Trump said.
The truth is that even with “crime dropping,” it is not dropping quickly enough. Moreover, even with “crime dropping” at “normal rates” or even the 30-year lows cited above, there’s also an argument to be made that the status quo on violent crime in the United States is still too high and unacceptable — especially when compared to violent crime rates in other civilized and developed cities and countries globally. This reality long predates Trump’s time as president, mind you. Given the Democrats’ history of tepid responses to violent crime, perhaps a response such as Trump’s was needed.