DeSantis Puts Crime Center Stage In 2024 Election

Crime is going to be a big talking point in the 2024 elections, just like it was in the 2022 midterms. We already hear candidates like Ron DeSantis telling us that Democratic cities are overrun with crime. But a new report shows that cities in Florida – where DeSantis is King – are actually far more crime-ridden than some of the other cities politicians love to talk about. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Crime is going to be a big talking point in the 2024 election, just like it was in the 2022 midterms. We already hear candidates like Ron DeSantis telling us that Democratic cities are overrun with crime. And on the Democratic side, we hear Biden talking about how the white supremacists are going to burn us down in the streets. What do you think?

I think obviously crime is an issue here in the United States, to say that it's not, is to ignore reality and we don't ignore reality even when it doesn't fit our narratives. But Ron DeSantis has gone out there repeatedly, especially after Trump got indicted in Manhattan and he said, well this prosecutor's not focusing on crime. Crime is outta control in New York City. People are getting.

And it is, it is. I mean, but compared to Florida there's some, make some comparisons.

Exactly. So yes, crime, well, property crime has gone up in New York. Violent crime has gone down. Then you turn around and you look at Florida. Well property crime has gone down in Florida, but violent crime, murders, rapes have gone up through the roof more than New York. So you're more likely to get killed here than you are in New York CIty.

Okay. Now how many journalists do you think actually analyzed that? When you, isn't it easier to say, look at Chicago, 50 people got shot in Chicago this past week. They don't pay a lot of attention to it because it's black on black crime, unfortunately. It's still people getting shot. LA, they got, you know, but the point is this, they don't really make comparisons before they go there. And that's what the statistics say about when a politician uses the crime card, it's very effective. I mean, it is like twice as effective as an ad that doesn't have some kind of scare aspect to it.

Right.

And the interesting thing about the statistics on it are when the message is a scare tactic, then the person hearing the scare tactic is only going to read and absorb the things that agree with that. So they'll seek out more information. In other words, LA crime is crazy. People gotten shot in San Francisco. You can't walk down the street without getting mauled. They're gonna sense that, they're gonna hear that, and then they're gonna go out and they're gonna seek out information that tells 'em that same story. It just enables it even further. It heightens it even further. Both sides do it. You know, Trump is out there saying the Mexicans are coming across the border to kill us and to traffic our children. And MS 13 is here with all their tattoos and you ought to be afraid. Be very afraid. And then Biden, well Biden the pitch is, Klansmen and Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are gonna take over Washington, DC. They're gonna take over your state houses. They're gonna be, they're gonna watch democracy perish in the streets if you don't vote for Biden. It's both sides because they both know it's effective.

Well, and I gotta say the Democrats are actually really bad at it because for decades now.

Good point.

Republicans have been using crime as a campaign issue. They show it in their ads. And again, this goes back to the 1980s trying to show Democrats are bad on crime.

Lee Atwater.

Exactly.

Lee Atwater.

But then again, when you look at the statistics, which the Democrats had these statistics, y'all are just too dumb to use them in an ad. But the top, of the top 10 cities in the United States with the worst crime rates, eight of them are Republican cities. And these cities in Florida, Miami, Tallahassee, Jacksonville have higher crime rates.