I don't know the politics of it, but I do know that crime is spectacularly over-hyped and I also know that American prosperity will depend on our continued acceptance of immigration. And asylum seekers are some of the bravest of immigrants and will make some of our most wonderful citizens.
This is just not convincing, not supported by evidence. I do agree that political messaging is a strict liability business - if you are a candidate who is failing to reach a segment of voters, you can’t really blame anyone else for it. But it’s far from obvious that the approach you describe would work.
This crime narrative is so wild. Ok yeah America is the most violent 1st world country per capita by far, it also has lots of crime, however, violence and crime are far below 1994 highs and dropping. The problem is the Dems get accused of being weak on crime. Ok, show me where being tough on crime works, show me how jail and prisons stop crime, there is no data. There is more of a correlation between lead poisoning and crime rates than police/jail than crime rates. Biden is so out of touch it is his fault no one wants to vote for him, but let’s not stop their. The massive fail-son/daughter army in politics and media also add to this problem. Love your work...
This is a mixed bag of an article. I agree with you that on many issues there is a deep geographic and class-based gap between people’s analogue experiences and what is really going on. Direct experience with crime or with asylum seekers is heavily concentrated in specific areas not populated or visited by the vast majority of voters. So the gap gets filled by digital reality, which is of course highly manipulated.
The Eric Adams example created an interesting exception to this, and Adams just stupidly fell into the trap that red state border governors set for him. If you live in El Paso or Brownsville, the reality of dealing with huge numbers of asylum seekers is real and it puts a huge strain on municipal infrastructure. Because they’re all in the same places at the same time. Anyone who denies this is delusional.
So these governors decided to try to turn New York City into El Paso by bussing or flying huge numbers of asylum seekers to blue state and blue state cities like New York. When Adams started whining about it, it permitted red state governors like Abbott to call out the hypocrisy. El Paso and the like have dealt with this and worse for decades. Adams should have taken care of the people as best he could and kept his mouth shut. It’s simply a true embarrassment and own goal for Blue States and a coup for Red States.
What is the lesson to be drawn here? You say Democrats should stop enforcing border laws to get the youth back. I think it proves the opposite point--when faced with analogue reality a lot of Blue places aren’t very sympathetic to migrants either--Adams is a political animal and he was responding to his constituents. There is a huge amount of hypocrisy when it comes to immigration and border state governors exposed it. Open borders here loses elections. The GOP is just more open about it.
As for crime, it also is highly concentrated and thus is only a digital reality for most Americans. Even in large cities like LA where my dad was a prosecutor and criminal judge, crime is highly localized in certain parts of LA County. The “defund the police” movement was a political disaster and now Dems are overcompensating. They will never be seen as the law and order party, but they don’t need to be. They just need to be seen as not crazy or delusional. But whatever they do on this issue will not affect the youth vote much, and defund the police will alienate and lose elections irrespective of the youth.
There are other reasons for youth alienation from Dems in 2024. Biden’s age. Inflation that Gen Z has no experience of. Check out Nate Silver’s Substack for more.
Fundamentally I agree with Nichols that voters in the 18-34 age group need to hold their noses and vote to keep Trump out. Not voting is indefensible and stupid.
Your prescription will make things worse and more likely that Trump wins. Even if it succeeds in getting more youth to vote, it will cause far greater problems for Dems in other demographic cohorts.
I fear the cost of housing more than any crime. The cost of housing could force me into crimes of the future.
Seriously.
I don't know the politics of it, but I do know that crime is spectacularly over-hyped and I also know that American prosperity will depend on our continued acceptance of immigration. And asylum seekers are some of the bravest of immigrants and will make some of our most wonderful citizens.
This is just not convincing, not supported by evidence. I do agree that political messaging is a strict liability business - if you are a candidate who is failing to reach a segment of voters, you can’t really blame anyone else for it. But it’s far from obvious that the approach you describe would work.
This crime narrative is so wild. Ok yeah America is the most violent 1st world country per capita by far, it also has lots of crime, however, violence and crime are far below 1994 highs and dropping. The problem is the Dems get accused of being weak on crime. Ok, show me where being tough on crime works, show me how jail and prisons stop crime, there is no data. There is more of a correlation between lead poisoning and crime rates than police/jail than crime rates. Biden is so out of touch it is his fault no one wants to vote for him, but let’s not stop their. The massive fail-son/daughter army in politics and media also add to this problem. Love your work...
This is a mixed bag of an article. I agree with you that on many issues there is a deep geographic and class-based gap between people’s analogue experiences and what is really going on. Direct experience with crime or with asylum seekers is heavily concentrated in specific areas not populated or visited by the vast majority of voters. So the gap gets filled by digital reality, which is of course highly manipulated.
The Eric Adams example created an interesting exception to this, and Adams just stupidly fell into the trap that red state border governors set for him. If you live in El Paso or Brownsville, the reality of dealing with huge numbers of asylum seekers is real and it puts a huge strain on municipal infrastructure. Because they’re all in the same places at the same time. Anyone who denies this is delusional.
So these governors decided to try to turn New York City into El Paso by bussing or flying huge numbers of asylum seekers to blue state and blue state cities like New York. When Adams started whining about it, it permitted red state governors like Abbott to call out the hypocrisy. El Paso and the like have dealt with this and worse for decades. Adams should have taken care of the people as best he could and kept his mouth shut. It’s simply a true embarrassment and own goal for Blue States and a coup for Red States.
What is the lesson to be drawn here? You say Democrats should stop enforcing border laws to get the youth back. I think it proves the opposite point--when faced with analogue reality a lot of Blue places aren’t very sympathetic to migrants either--Adams is a political animal and he was responding to his constituents. There is a huge amount of hypocrisy when it comes to immigration and border state governors exposed it. Open borders here loses elections. The GOP is just more open about it.
As for crime, it also is highly concentrated and thus is only a digital reality for most Americans. Even in large cities like LA where my dad was a prosecutor and criminal judge, crime is highly localized in certain parts of LA County. The “defund the police” movement was a political disaster and now Dems are overcompensating. They will never be seen as the law and order party, but they don’t need to be. They just need to be seen as not crazy or delusional. But whatever they do on this issue will not affect the youth vote much, and defund the police will alienate and lose elections irrespective of the youth.
There are other reasons for youth alienation from Dems in 2024. Biden’s age. Inflation that Gen Z has no experience of. Check out Nate Silver’s Substack for more.
Fundamentally I agree with Nichols that voters in the 18-34 age group need to hold their noses and vote to keep Trump out. Not voting is indefensible and stupid.
Your prescription will make things worse and more likely that Trump wins. Even if it succeeds in getting more youth to vote, it will cause far greater problems for Dems in other demographic cohorts.
But you do make some good points.
I’ll keep voting for my inane no-hoper weirdo candidates, thankyouverymuch
Thank you for voting! In RFK Jr. you certainly have an "inane no-hoper wierdo" candidate!
Definitely not voting for that dipshit. Probably Claudia de la Cruz or someone like that
I’ll look her up