Democrats Need a Better Answer for Crime

Over the last few months, President Trump has deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to crack down on crime and unrest in the cities, and he has subsequently threatened to do the same in other big cities as well. Earlier this month, he announced a new target, Chicago, writing, “I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in D.C. Chicago will be safe again, & soon.” He also called out the state’s Democratic Governor, JB Pritzker, saying Pritzker “needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet.”¹

Pritzker responded with a familiar refrain: that the statistics show crime in these cities isn’t as bad as Trump says it is, and Trump’s threats to deploy the Guard in Illinois are a “dangerous power grab.” These sentiments echo those offered by other national party figures. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called Trump’s deployment of the National Guard “dangerously authoritarian.” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton both touted the fact that the violent crime rate in DC was at a 30-year low.

Many Democrats understandably feel uneasy about Trump’s moves, especially normalizing the domestic deployment of the U.S. military.² And it is true that violent crime rates have declined in D.C. and many other major cities since their Covid-era surge. But responding in this manner to Trump’s effort to demonstrate his intolerance toward crime also carries a risk: leading the public to believe the party is indifferent to their concerns about public safety.

As we outlined here last week, recent polling has confirmed that Americans continue to be worried about crime. To quickly summarize: according to a 2024 Gallup poll, 64 percent said there is more crime in the country than there was a year ago. Just last month, an AP-NORC poll found that a whopping 81 percent of Americans believe crime in big cities is a major problem, while 66 percent said the same about the country on the whole. And notably, while voters opposed some of Trump’s specific moves, 53 percent still supported his handling of crime.

Even in the capital, many residents remain concerned for their safety. Back in May, a Washington Post poll showed that half (50 percent) of District residents believed the city’s crime problem was either “extremely” or “very” serious, while another 41 percent said it was “moderately” serious. As someone who lived in D.C. for over a decade until this year, I get the sentiment. Especially since the pandemic, it sometimes felt like street robberies, carjackings, or stray bullets shattering the windows of homes or businesses were near-daily occurrences. Even residents in relatively low-crime areas had to be vigilant when taking the subway late at night or patronizing busy districts.

There are similar stories in cities like Chicago as well. And recently, the brutal murder of a Ukrainian immigrant on a Charlotte train has only reinforced many people’s fears. All this gets at a second issue with the above remarks from Democratic leaders: at a time when many Americans remain worried about their safety in public, they see these responses from the party as little more than, “Your fears aren’t legitimate.”

This same perception has gotten the Democrats in trouble in recent memory. For example, Americans made clear throughout most of President Biden’s term that they viewed the top issues facing the country as inflation and the cost of living crisis. But rather than speaking directly to Americans’ pain with some consistency, President Biden instead touted his economic achievements and pointed to indicators like the stock market, wage growth, and jobs reports—while sometimes outright ignoring inflation. A similar story played out in Virginia in 2021, when Democrats seemed to dismiss the concerns that parents had about the state’s public schools, leading voters to rebel against the party in that year’s race for governor.

In both cases, Democrats’ failure to take voters’ worries seriously led to poor political outcomes. Now, they appear intent on making the same mistakes yet again. There is nothing wrong with cautioning against executive overreach or making sure everyone is operating on a shared set of facts. Most people agree on that. But Americans have made clear that “relatively lower crime” doesn’t mean “acceptable levels of crime,” and many don’t appreciate it when they feel their legitimate concerns—whether on this issue or others—are being ignored, dismissed, or ridiculed.

Yet, as Democrats increasingly become a party of a technocratic, college-educated elite, their impulse is often to reach for analytical, wonky answers to public policy matters or dismiss rhetoric that appeals to people’s concerns as “far-right” and authoritarian. Though recent history has shown that this rarely has the intended effect of bringing people over to their side, it is likely to at least earn them plaudits among their similarly credentialed peers who speak the same language and who can’t fathom why anyone would support Trump’s moves other than that they don’t possess the wisdom of those in high office.

This is how the party gets caught flat-footed when a majority of voters say that they approve of what Trump is doing to combat crime—and that they trust Republicans far more than Democrats on the issue.

Democratic leaders must get back to the basics, not just on crime but also on other social and cultural issues. Meet voters where they are and treat their concerns with the respect they deserve. This is a paramount first step to regaining the trust of many Americans whose support they have lost in the Trump era.

Editor’s note: a version of this piece first appeared in UnHerd.

1. Though Trump has since backed away from Chicago and decided instead to deploy the Guard to Memphis, TN, his initial threat still triggered loud Democratic pushback.

2. It is worth noting, however, that Trump does have the legal authority to deploy the Guard and so far has operated within the bounds of that authority.