Are you implying that crime hasn’t always been high in Chicago and Oakland? How is it different under Biden than Trump or Obama?
2 Likes
Inflation, immigration, crime, the economy. These things are on people’s minds, along with 2-3 other issues, but none of them are the highest ranking issue.
I would say that Trump is the top talking point for the election, and based on one’s perspective, whether you want to see him in jail for his crimes, or sitting as President again in the Whitehouse, almost everyone thinks that what happens to Trump is wrapped up in saving the nation, to one degree or another.
Trump, Trump, Trump are the top three issues.
After that, the issues mentioned at the top are part of about half a dozen issues that are on the radar of most people.
Inflation has been high, no doubt about it. In relation to the many years of lows we have grown accustomed to, inflation has been high. Now zoom out and consider the global economy, and especially things like a global pandemic, and all the issues flowing from that, to say nothing of the war on Ukraine, and the impact that has had. Still, America has fared ok, and inflation has been dropping and is getting under control. More work to be done, but it is mistaken to think about the President of America as a singular solution to a global problem.
Immigration. Doesn’t affect me where I live, especially. Generally speaking, I would say stop demonizing people and let them have a shot at making a life here if they want to. Invest lots of money in processing asylum, but create a pathway for people. The vast majority want what is also good for America - to come, find a job, get a place to live, build a life. Since we do anecdotal, I will mention our cleaner. First, I am conflicted about having a cleaner. I grew up on a council estate. Still, this is where we are now. She is from Mexico. She does a great job for us. My wife pays her way more than we have to, over $30 an hour, because we can and because she is fighting for her family and we see that. I hate how the media has got people whipped up into a frenzy. Just treat people right, and all this shit will be sorted out! And yes, anyone who comes across as part of an organized gang - it’s a very small component, but we have to be honest and say this is a factor too - then invest money into rooting them out and slapping them down hard.
Crime - I don’t really experience crime where I live. It’s a great place to raise kids and do life. Go a bit to the south and there is more crime in Indianapolis. It’s complex, but poverty, drugs, and the lack of gun control are huge factors. I’d love to see Republicans tackle those things properly, instead of squawking about Hispanic people at the border.
The economy. It’s fine. Biden has added millions of jobs and the stock market is high. Inflation has improved too. People can extract anecdotal data points and say my groceries are more than last year and so on, but again, everything is interrelated globally, and in the system we have, America is doing well, and can do better.
We can keep going on about the issues. There will always be issues in every country, but to my mind, it’s really not that bad here.
By far the biggest issue is Trump. He has an active plan for vengeance, to hollow out government and replace people at all levels with sycophants. He ruined the election process and now he is actively trying to ruin the rule of law, so the concept of justice we have come to know is dismantled.
Biden is too old and I don’t mind saying he is past it. In a normal situation I likely would not vote for him.
But by far the biggest issue in play is stopping Trump, because of the damage he has done to the country, and the damage he fully intends to do on taking office. I fear there will be more violence that makes January 6th look small, because he is a mobster who has almost half the country in the palm of his hand. It is appalling that it has come to this, but the festering boil that is Trump must be lanced in November.
All other issues are garden variety politics, and we can get back to that, but first…
2 Likes
Aren’t you an immigrant yourself?
2 Likes
Border (Immigration)? Or are these the two in your neck of the woods?. I barely see environment in top 5 when looking at various polls. Abortion I see a lot, along with Border.
Oh, and when talking about immigration, it’s not quite accurate as an issue, as it’s illegal immigration, hence “the border”.
I also put more weight on anecdotal when it comes to inflation and economy as it’s people that vote, not economic statistics.
I think I misread @Bekloppt question in retrospect as I was giving what my important issues are on a personal level, not speaking for the country. I personally don’t give a shit about immigration. I am an immigrant afterall but as a white, English man my experience is very different. I think it’s mostly handled very aggressively, especially on the Southern border. From my understanding most “illegal” immigration comes from people overstaying visas rather than sneaking past border security anyway.
Although it is funny that I speak to a guy who regularly complains about how annoying it is that whenever he is at his hunting cabin, which lies on the border with Canada, he gets hassled by border security asking him why he’s there and what he’s doing. Thinks it’s all ridiculous, and I agree with him. He’s a Trump voter though so he’s actually voting for stronger border regulation, while complaining about the border patrol annoying him!
6 Likes
Biden has wiped out Trumps lead for independents in latest poll. (Just going off headlines so take with pinch of salt. Might have been fox news, not sure what the poll was)
Most Trump-voting types don’t really spend much time thinking about the northern border. There is actually far more illegal migration into Canada from the US than vice versa, US role is akin to France vis-a-vis UK immigration.
4 Likes
I don’t think the illegal immigrants overstaying visa is accurate. Its a few million encountered at the border 2023 alone. Overstaying visa is most likely collated over a longer period of time.
I respect your opinion and was genuinely interested in what you think the issues are, both personally and nationally.
Basically, I wanted to get to the politics and away from the ‚this guy’s incoherent, that guy’s raving‘ debate.
2 Likes
If they are encountered they are not successfully migrating, border patrol is stopping them.
Much harder to stop someone who is already in the country and just doesn’t leave - how do you even find those people? Didn’t 21 Savage get into trouble because he applied for a passport and found out he wasn’t even a legal citizen, in a country he’s lived in since he was about 10? He’d been a major celebrity for a while at that point and he wasn’t even discovered until he made a formal application.
This is from a 2019 NPR article For 7th Consecutive Year, Visa Overstays Exceeded Illegal Border Crossings : NPR
2 Likes
People looking at our crime statistics who live in another country very likely have a clearer less biased perception of the real crime rate than us who live here and might be biased by our personal or hyperlocalized experiences of it.
The reality is when it comes to crime, the US has experienced a steady 30-40 year decline that has been meaningfully halted by only 1 thing - the covid pandemic. That has altered the crime statistics of both the Trump and Biden presidency, but what we have seen is that over the past two years (associated with being over the worst of the pandemic) crime has fallen and is now back to not just pre-pandemic levels, but back to the level projected by the 40 year trend. If the tables were turned and a Republican ousted a democrat from the whitehouse in 2020, with these same statistics and trends Fox news would be singing from the mountaintops about how they gotten the Democrat crime wave under control because they are the party of law and order
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4726336-crime-is-way-down-why-arent-democrats-talking-about-it/
Just because this is the national story doesnt mean that locally the story is the same everywhere. So sure, it might be reasonable to talk about South side Chicago has not seen these reductions. But this is why we collect and rely on statistics, because they point out when our anecdotal (biased) experience of a phenomenon is an outlier rather than representative.
Importantly, as pointed out in that Hill piece (hardly a liberal source), the Biden crime reduction has been temporally associated with specific policies to address the crime surge he inherited (the Trump crime wave) by doing things that Trump did not (e.g. actually increasing policing where it was needed)
You may not be happy about your experience of crime despite the overall national improvement. You are entitled to tell people to fuck off if they tell you your personal experience of it has to be in line with the national statistics. But to blame the head of the federal executive branch of government over a hyperlocalized lack of performance takes some real gymnastics. I have seen cases why it might be possible to make an argument (the rise in violent crime in Florida in the mid-late 00s was largely caused by Katrina refugees who were put in that position in at least some small part because of Bush’s pathetic response to the emergency).
7 Likes
Building is one of the biggest things a community can do to get house prices (and rent) down, and that is a specifically local issue. Other than that, about all you can put on the president are policies that have effects on the overall economy and what the Fed feel they need to do on interest rates. Trump has an economic agenda that is aggressively inflationary, which will mean further and sustained interest rate hikes.
2 Likes
Encountered just shows the level, and buy itself is not “accurate” for the purposes of tabulating the numbers as it obviously cant record what is not seen. The numbers in total are most likely a wash.
Statistics on crime need to be taken along with location as a huge spike in crime in San Francisco is irrelevant to the election as its a democratic stronghold and will not flip. These statistics are only useful for close races, so national statistics are not useful when compared to local statistics.
Encounter shows any interaction between border patrol and a “removeable noncitizen”.
The apprehension of more people, ie. more encounters, only shows that there is already an aggressive border patrol that is stopping immigration at a higher rate than Trump’s government was able to. I don;t consider this a good or bad thing because as previously stated I don’t give a shit about immigration but this should be something Republicans are praising Biden for. Conservatives want stronger border security and Biden is apprehending more people than ever before. How is that a strength for Trump?
I edited my original post while you were responding so you probably didn’t see but I posted an NPR article from 2019 that shows visa overstays accounted for 62% of undocumented migration, compared to 38% of border crossings. Since then Biden has taken over and is stopping more people than ever at the border so I expect those numbers have probably gone even more in favour of visa overstays.
3 Likes
National statistics are the only relevant ones to use in a national debate about a federal office holder.
Crime is an electoral problem for Biden. I am not arguing otherwise. However, it is as a result of a completely made up story that isn’t relying on a different take on the data, it has just made it up without consideration of what the data say. This is partly a traditional US trope about the GOP being better for law and order. But it is at least in part the tail of the Abolish issue that was so big in 2020. When combined with the trope that the Dems are weak on crime, it allowed the Republicans and Republican promoting media to push the idea that crime was out of control (because the dems have abolished the police) and data saying the opposite be damned.
2 Likes
It looks like the Dems are about to go all in on ‘Convicted Felon Trump’ after initial reticence. Post-trial polling shows it to be front and centre of a key demographic , and next month’s sentencing is expected to harden attitudes further.
"Testing how Trump’s conviction would resonate with voters was nearly impossible until it happened, Biden campaign officials said, as voters’ preferences often change once an issue is no longer abstract. A second Biden campaign pollster, also granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, noted that since, “almost universally, voters know this happened,” it’s now important for the campaign to “keep it in the bloodstream and not let it fade from voters’ minds.”
"Now, even Democrats who had initially discouraged the president from directly addressing the outcome of the trial have come around in the face of post-verdict polling.
“What the polling clearly shows is there is a group of voters for whom the convictions matter and … it is the voters who are going to decide the election,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way. “A lot of us were skeptical that it would. But I think it’s clear that these voters were shaken by the idea of a convicted felon becoming president. It’s a pretty potent argument to make for voters who are on the fence.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/18/biden-campaign-decision-attacking-trump-conviction-00163817
1 Like
This has traditionally been the balance, but we have seen big surges in migration from the south that has actually flipped this since 2020. That surge is real. The question is what are the respective parties trying to do about it. Our immigration system is simply not equipped to deal with the number of people trying to cross these days, and this is largely the result of being restrained by having to operate within the boundaries set be a series of laws that have not changed since the 80s and are no longer fit for purpose given the significantly increased pressure on the system.
The system is broken and needs new legislation to give the authorities the ability to adapt to the new realities at the border. In the absence of that the situation will be a bit of a mess, but this is not a reflection of an “open border” policy. As @Sweeting has pointed out, apprehensions (of both people and contraband) has consistently been high in the Biden era than Trump, which while it doesnt speak to what else might be getting through at least demonstrates that the border is being vigorously enforced.
It is really complicated to understand what the government does at the border and why, but this is well worth anyone’s time who actually cares (most dont)
1 Like
This might be what you’d assume if what people really meant when they said “immigration was an issue” was that they have no problem with people coming here the right way but they need to get in line like everyone else. That isnt really true though and is why Trump immigration policies are far more restrictive than just dealing with enforcing the border.