Today Anand was on Morning Joe, talking about how Donald Trump’s invented reality of a lawless, violent Washington, D.C., runs counter to the actual crime statistics, but draws on deep-seated American anxieties to justify this week’s federal takeover of law enforcement in the capital. Anand even managed to make some progress in convincing host Joe Scarborough. You’ll want to watch the entire exchange — just click on the video player above.
Joe Scarborough: On the Democratic Party's response to people's, quote, feelings about crime. When people tell you, I don't feel safe in my city, right? What is a Democratic politician to do?
Anand Giridharadas: Yeah, I think this is a very interesting and difficult conversation, because in politics, one of my mantras in politics, feelings very quickly become facts.
So crime is real. It is blown out of proportion. People are feeling much more unsafe than maybe they statistically are. But the feeling matters. People deserve to be safe, but they also deserve to feel safe. And I think it is true that Democrats have sometimes ignored or lectured people holding a spreadsheet of statistics.
That said, I think it's really important to be clear about what is going on here, and a relatively small crime problem is being used for specific authoritarian purposes that we know and understand.
So let's be clear: D.C. does have one really big crime problem, which was the January 6th insurrection incited by the current president of the United States, and his first act in coming back was pardoning all the people who tried to overturn the constitutional republic order in Washington, D.C.
When I go to D.C., I'm not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I'm afraid of losing my vote.
I'm not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I'm afraid that my children's freedom to breathe will be stolen in a world where climate change policy is non-existent.
I'm afraid that the future of middle-class people will be stolen by the very things you were talking about: cutting the safety net, cutting Medicaid, scutting rural hospitals.
***
We can't ignore what he is actually trying to do here, which is weaponize this fear of not just this city, but all cities.
He can't get Chicago out of his mouth. He's not trying to intervene in the mayoral race in New York. And he is doing this to distract us from the fact that right now, a crime family is atop the White House.
Right now, he is running crypto schemes. He is running policy to do the upward redistribution of wealth that you were just criticizing to enrich his billionaire cronies and donors.
So I think we have to have a sense of proportion.
The Republic is being stolen. This is the big crime story.
Read Anand’s full essay at the link below:
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