Many Democrats minimize rising violent crime in large Democratic-run cities, ignoring that several major cities remain above pre-COVID crime levels despite recent improvements. Some liberal elites and celebrities accept lower urban standards of safety, but that tolerance diverges from the expectations of everyday residents and voters. Perceived indifference to crime contributed to the party's loss of a national governing coalition and helped fuel electoral landslides in the past. Historical backlash and the 1968 Wallace candidacy demonstrated widespread safety concerns across demographics. Bill Clinton's crime-focused repositioning temporarily restored competitiveness, and current retrenchment risks repeating earlier political losses.
Democrats are in denial about crime in big, blue cities. You can quibble about the statistics-many large cities became less safe during the height of the pandemic, have seen noticeable improvements since then, but have not returned to their pre-COVID rates of criminality-but to pretend that Washington, DC or Chicago is Andy Griffith's Mayberry is delusional. Like the hirsute comedic actor Seth Rogen, many liberals have low standards for what constitutes acceptable city life.
A perceived indifference to crime was among the reasons the party of FDR, JFK, and LBJ lost its national majority coalition and was soon on the wrong end of 49-state landslides nationally. At that time, it was only the most liberal elements of the Democratic Party who subscribed to the theory that "law and order" was merely synonymous with "white backlash" against the civil-rights movement.
It took many years of losing presidential elections for Bill Clinton to walk his party back from the abyss. The Clinton crime bill didn't solve all the Democrats' problems-conservative voters associated it more with gun control and social spending on programs like midnight basketball than new police officers on the beat, while progressives and libertarians would come to blame it for mass incarceration-but his triangulation bought them some time as crime rates fell.
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