Youngkin and Miyares Continue to Lie About Crime in Virginia

Decades ago when I was a Republican activist and held a City Committee seat in Virginia Beach, for the most part the truth and honesty mattered to the party.  Like any other segment of society there were exceptions and liars existed within the party - escpecially among the evangelicals and Christofascists seeking to infiltrate the party - but moderates with integrity sought to minimize their influence.  Fast forward to today and if there is one defining aspect of the Republican Party it is that the truth does not matter (noe does personal integrity) and that any lie deemed to be politically useful is acceptable, Trump's "Big Lie" being but the most stark example.  Across the country lying is the GOP norm and Virginia has not been excluded for the epidemic of lying.  A piece a friend posted from prior to the November 2021 Virginia elections that should have gotten far more exposure exposes the lies of Glenn Youngkin and his ticket mates - particularly Jason Miyares who billed himself as "Virginia's top cop" even though the attorney general's office has little involvement in police law enforcement - on the issue of crime.   Now that these individuals are unfortunately in office expect the lies to continue and efforts to be made to undo gun control measures that seek to restrict guns, the principal weapon used in murders.  Here are article highlights:

You love your family. You—and all 8.6 million people living in Virginia—want to protect them from the scary world that cable news networks and social media platforms tell you we’re living in. Day after day, you receive this message. It’s so constant that you’d be forgiven for thinking much of the US has descended into violent lawlessness. . . . . you’re scared the chaos is going to find its way to your front door.

So when a seemingly upstanding gentleman in a suit knocks on that very door, tells you to blame this other guy for the violence that is supposedly everywhere, and promises to protect your family—it makes sense that you might believe him.

This, in a nutshell, is what’s happening right now in Virginia and all across America. 

Fifty-nine percent of Americans believe crime is an “extremely serious or very serious issue in America,” according to a June 2021 Washington Post poll. But the same poll found that only 17% said this was true for where they live. Another poll, this one conducted by Yahoo in July, found that 70% of Americans believe crime is up in America, but only 37% said crime is up where they live.

Clearly, those numbers don’t square. . . . . Instead, what those numbers suggest is that people think crime is up way more than it is. That’s likely because much of the Republican Party and wide swaths of the American media have been shouting about this from the rooftops for more than a year.

In Virginia, the Republican candidate for governor Glenn Youngkin has tried to position himself as the best person to address crime in the commonwealth. . . . .But in doing so, Youngkin has misrepresented what’s really happening in Virginia. 

By virtually any metric and according to any source of data, one thing is clear: Virginia is and has long been one of the safest states in the country.

That said, Youngkin is right about one thing: murder rates did increase in 2020. . . . But some context is needed: Even as murders rose, the rate of overall violent crimes was actually down in 2020 in Virginia according to both the FBI (2.8% decrease) and VSP (1.9% decrease). These drops were driven by a 22% decrease in rapes and a 16% decrease in robberies, according to the FBI. 

Here’s another fact that Youngkin hasn’t acknowledged: Even as Virginia’s murder rate rose in 2020, it was actually lower than the national rate and lower than the state’s rate in the 1990s. 

Once again: Virginia is, by any measure, one of the least dangerous places in the US. 

In every year since 1985 (which is as far back as the FBI’s data goes), Virginia’s violent crime rate has been substantially lower than the national rate. . . . the rate of violent crimes in Virginia has been about half the national level in most years since 1985. 

But you know what also happened in 2020? 

The worst pandemic in a century, hundreds of thousands of deaths across the country due to COVID-19, the shutdown of schools and public spaces, the interruption of violence prevention and community safety programs, growing political divisions, simmering anger and trauma, and record gun sales. There was also widespread unemployment amid simultaneous public health and economic crises that spun out of control under a Republican president who minimized the pandemic, fueled racial divisions, and unleashed federal law enforcement officials on peaceful protesters. 

While we don’t have any conclusive evidence, data suggests the pandemic all but certainly played a role in the surge of murders.

Republicans—including Youngkin—have tried to pin the blame on the increase in murders on Democrats and their policies, even though Donald Trump was president and Republicans controlled more governor’s mansions than Democrats did in 2020.

Right-wing media outlets played a huge role in amplifying these baseless claims. As a report from the centrist group Third Way noted, “In conservative media outlets like Fox News there is a drumbeat that overly permissive crime policies enacted by Democrats are putting Americans at risk to violent crime. The data does not back this assertion.”

Wyoming and South Dakota, two of the reddest states in the country, saw 92% and 69% increases in murders respectively. These spikes were the highest among the 23 jurisdictions . . . . that had submitted full crime data for last year as of August 2021.

“In our 23 jurisdictions, three out of four states with the largest percentage increases in murder are governed by Republicans. As for overall crime, seven out of the twelve states with decreasing overall crime rates between 2019 and 2020 have Democratic governors,”

Youngkin has often been depicted as a reasonable, moderate Republican, but he has also taken a page out of the Trump playbook and tried to fashion himself into a law-and-order candidate.

Despite the objective nature of numbers—two plus two equals four, not five—Republicans have continued to claim that two plus two equals five by claiming that Democrats have caused a surge in crime.

Youngkin and other Republicans have continued to portray themselves as tough on crime, but it’s actually Democrats who’ve tried to do something about the main weapon used in murders: guns. Eighty-one percent of homicides in the commonwealth last year involved some form of handgun, rifle, shotgun, or other form of firearm, according to the FBI data. . . . Youngkin, meanwhile, opposes any such efforts to strengthen gun safety laws and has suggested he would repeal the Democratic-passed changes. 

Virginians need to educated themselves on the truth - which means never watching Fox News and similar propaganda outlets - and vote Democrat in 2022 and 2023 to undo the mistake they made in November, 2021.