On the RNC and fear mongering.

 If you know anything about advertising, if you can tie in your product to fear (for one's life or for one's loved ones' lives) you can sell a lot more of what you have. So in this market driven world, it's only right that politics has gone from trying to speak some truths to a reality out there, that the likes of our carnival barker POS-POTUS has managed to make fear of that which doesn't exist a lasting feature of our politi-scape. [1]

 

There are some interesting points, including that DV has stayed the same (really? that's surprising given the lockdowns and economic downturn). In fact, that would have been my instinctual answer: are we sure it isn't all DV? 

But no. It's mainly homocides that are up:

That certainly suggests there were more homicides. But it’s hard to say if that’s a result of more shootings, as some news reports have suggested, given that numbers of reported gun assaults weren’t significantly different. It’s unclear what’s driving the increase in homicides if more shootings aren’t.

But the spike isn't related to the protests. 

That's in Chicago, but there is some variation:

There’s a lot of variation from city to city. Denver, Minneapolis, New York City, and Philadelphia are on the high end of homicides or seeing a flat-out increase. Austin, Baltimore, Boston, and Columbus are in line with historical trends or actually down.

 There are a bunch of reasons for this, up to and including reporting (hence the difference between murder and other violent crimes). But here's one explanation for the DV numbers:

One note on domestic violence: Some activists and experts worried it would increase this year as people were forced to stay home more often. The Council on Criminal Justice report and City Crime Stats’ analysis suggest that’s not the case, showing no significant change or a drop in some places. But there’s reason for skepticism: Both sources are pulling data from a limited number of cities. And reporting limitations may especially apply to domestic violence, since this year victims are potentially more likely to be trapped with their abusers and unable to make a phone call for help.

But in the end, much of this is a nationwide issue, and affects even GOP-led cities. Whether it's covid or the rise in gun buying or police striking (I tend to blame police and their informants for much of the violence, so there's that.. not to mention that in Ferguson activists were killed mysteriously... so there's the other though I have that the police push[2] for more murders, something that's even harder to prove, but for which it'll be even harder to prove) or something else that's driving this rise, we'll just have to wait and see. 

Still, I can only expect Trump to scream about this and not waver for a second even if faced with facts that go against his narrative. It's important that we maintain a clear mind when analyzing this. 

Speaking of clear minds, was looking at this model for Covid, and the scientist involved does indeed think that immunity plays some role (hard to know how much individual actions matter, maybe those in such areas wash their hands more, wear masks more etc etc) and is different from lockdowns (in that some people don't react well to lockdowns, and in the end what does a lockdown mean?). CA is a case in point. 

 

Would like to hear your points on both of these issues.

So stay safe out there!

[1] Note this also happened before and even Clinton had to play to this, in that crime was falling but people were being thrown into jails for a large amount of time, rarely corresponding to the crimes committed (nevermind how much of the crime was lead-based). But I'm just saying he's taken it to new heights, especially when it doesn't compare to reality... IOW he's creating the fear out of thin air rather than twisting a minor issue into a larger one. 

[2] Well, we all know COINTELPRO, but there's also the matter.

 

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