NowThis deflects on reason for rise in violent crime
December 15, 2022
In a new video, NowThis News reports that the rise in violent crime doesn’t have anything to do with progressive prosecutors. Nothing, really, and their propaganda continues by saying that defunding the police had nothing to do with it, nor any of the other conservative talking points.
There are a few problems with these claims. The little tell was when they switched the argument. They start with “Is violent crime on the rise? Short answer – sort of” and go on to explain. The murder rate rose 30%. Robbery and property crime fell. But murder and assaults rose. In 2021, it had “already leveled off a bit”.
This then leads to the switch. One claim they want to debunk is that blue cities had worse outbreaks of murderous violence than red ones. Which they attempt to refute by referring to red and blue states. As if the known and long-standing higher gun death rate in the South had anything to do with whether there were more murders in Portland or Chicago. That sort of switch is a glaring red signal that the original contention has a great deal of truth to it – even, that it’s absolutely true.
Having walked through a few such attempts at deflection we’re offered the real reasons violence rose. The major one is to be that more guns were bought and that cause the increase in violent crime.
Except, the increase in gun sales was very much lower than the increase in violence. There are – about – 400 million guns in the US. Sales of an extra 5 million, or 1.25%, don’t lead to a 30% rise in murder by gun. That’s just not the way that numbers work. It’s also true that gun sales were elevated in 2021 – but recall that we’ve been told that the murder rate was leveling out by then?
NowThis wants to tell us that it’s really not the progressives and their lack of law enforcement policies that have led to the leap in murder rates. That their arguments are so weak is actually a support for the original contention. But then that’s so often true about propaganda, isn’t it?
NowThis seems like a small media outlet when we look at the website. It ranks at No. 1951 for news, and gains 699,000 visits a month from that. But its YouTube channel has 2.2 million subscribers, and that’s where this appears.
The problem here is that NowThis is not attempting to report on the varied claims, balancing and judging the evidence – they want to make a specific claim of their own. They’re doing propaganda, not journalism.