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To the Editor:
Roger Thornhill, the character played by Cary Grant in “North by Northwest,” defends his profession. “Advertisers don’t lie, they use expedient exaggeration," he says. The same could be said of politicians, who also tell lies. Both occupations spend billions of dollars to shape our perceptions: what to buy, which services to use and for whom to cast our ballot.
A case in point is the longstanding Republican dog whistle of crime. It was a driving force, along with inflation, in the midterm elections. New York has two of the most prominent fearmongers on crime. There is the Democrat Eric Adams and the Republican Lee Zeldin. Zeldin with his gubernatorial campaign and Adams from the time he ran for mayor have attacked progressive Democrats in the State Legislature for their efforts to reform an unfair criminal justice system. They asserted, with no data, that bail reform led to a rise in crime. Both condemned reform-minded district attorneys for their alleged failures to prosecute dangerous criminals.
It's a sad commentary that this type of demagoguery has been successful in scaring the public. An example was a recent headline in The New York Times: “High-Profile Subway Crimes Overshadow Riders’ Low Risk.” The article pointed out that “the current rate of 1.2 violent crimes for every one million rides is roughly equal to the chance of getting injured in a crash if one drives a car two miles.”
Politicians such as Adams and Zeldin who repeatedly present a false narrative about public safety, as well as other politicians such as Hochul who are afraid to forcefully challenge them, perform a grievous disservice to New Yorkers. They never point out that crimes figures, including murders and shootings, are significantly lower than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during these decades that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and in the White House put into place a system of mass incarceration. The prison and jail population grew from half a million to nearly two million. This disproportionately affected minorities. In 2022, its repercussions are still felt today in black, brown and poor communities.
Howard Elterman
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reenjoe
Well said. Thankfully, a majority of New Yorkers rejected Lee Zeldin and hopefully a real Democrat will challenge Eric Adams when his term ends. Somehow everyone in NYC felt safe under Giuliani when crime was 40% higher than it is now. I don't understand why Democrats are afraid to point out that the highest crime states are run by GOP leaders where there has been no bail reform "bogeyman" to blame. Democrats need to do what Republicans do during elections - lean into every argument from crime, economy, freedom, guns to individual rights. They have the facts on their side.
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