Or Memphis, which is smack dab in the middle of a permanently Republican supermajority state, yet has three times the murder rate and twice the robbery rate of NYC.

Is there a charitable explanation for why people cherrypick a single homicide in a metro of 8 million people and somehow act like it's proof for the downfall of liberal democracy?

Especially when by most relevant metrics, illiberal democracy performs dramatically worse?

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SilverElfin 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because you can gauge how you feel when you walk through the cities and realize something is off with this narrative. I suspect a lot of crimes aren’t tracked or classified properly in the data we see from cities in blue states, to support their policies. Or that victims are exhausted by the lack of prosecution and sentencing, and stop reporting things.

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vkou 6 days ago | parent [-]

> I suspect a lot of crimes aren’t tracked or classified properly

People don't under-report or misclassify homicides.

> when you walk through the cities and realize something is off with this narrative.

I happen to live in one of those war-torn anarchist cities that was claimed by Fox and friends to be an open charnel pit back in 2020, and I assure you, there is something off with a narrative.

Specifically, the narrative that my city is a lawless hellscape.

That narrative (along with the sudden and immediate need for the military to be illegally deployed in it) is back, by the way.

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SilverElfin 6 days ago | parent [-]

> People don't under-report or misclassify homicides.

They do. I’ve seen games like changing the rules by which deaths are counted as homicides and when. For example by requiring certain things are proven before it can be counted in a reported stat.

	▲	vkou 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And this happens on such a regular and systemic, and party-lines nature, so that all these liberal cities consistently undercount homicides by such incredible margins, despite all their police forces leaning heavily towards authoritarian-right? Do you have any proof for this, or is this a 'the earth is flat' sort of assertion? Can I just as confidently assert that it's actually the Republican-ran states that dramatically doctor and undercount homicide stats? Maybe Memphis actually has 10x the homicide rate of NYC...
	▲	6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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felineflock 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You seem to be living in a distant parallel world.

Here is how it looks like on the actual world: urban centers are dominated by Democrats in almost every state. The leniency regarding criminals comes from Democrats, specially regarding violent criminals.

Memphis' Paul Young is affiliated with the Democratic Party https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-mem...

https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_t...

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vkou 6 days ago | parent [-]

Cities only prosecute misdemeanors, and have no control over felony investigations or prosecutions. Police departments in all cities politically lean hard-right.

The state and the PD has far more influence over access to firearms and serious crime than a city's politics do. A city's authority is largely limited to handing out parking tickets and graffiti citations.

And republican supermajority states have never had any issue overriding any municipal legislature or policies that they don't like. It's as easy as drafting a piece of legislature for them. Municipalities don't enjoy even the illusion of sovereignty, or, really, any codified rights in the US.

----

And if you think it's the cities; fault, why is the homicide rate outside of cities in deep-Republican states so high? Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, the Carolinas... All have a horrible state-wide violent crime problem. How many more decades of Republican supermajorities will they need to bury the myth that Republican policies reduce crime?

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felineflock 6 days ago | parent [-]

Your assumptions are incorrect: felony prosecution is not outside local control, and police politics are irrelevant.

How many times a PD arrests a criminal then a judge later releases? That criminal with 30-year history would never be free if judged in a rural county instead of urban NYC or Charlotte.

The real drivers are prosecutorial policies driven by political priorities.

And we all know that who sides with criminals most of the time are the Democrats.

	▲	vkou 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Your assumptions are incorrect: felony prosecution is not outside local control, and police politics are irrelevant. Felony prosecution is done by DAs, which are subservient to the state. Police politics is completely relevant, because they prioritize enforcement and have incredible leeway in its execution. > The real drivers are prosecutorial policies driven by political priorities. Those policies are ultimately set at the state level, because that's who DAs are accountable to. > And we all know that who sides with criminals most of the time are the Democrats. Is that why the Republican party has elected a convicted felon to lead it?