So Trump will try to make this election about big-city crime; basically he wants to run the Giuliani campaign of the early 1990s. And maybe he will succeed — but not based on objective reality. For big-city crime plunged over the past generation 1/

In 1993 there were 1,927 murders in NYC. Last year there were only 319. In Trump's mind big cities are dystopian landscapes of murder and mayhem; in reality they're as safe as they've ever been 2/ https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs-en-us-city.pdf

It's true that there has been a spike in murders over the past few months, although crime is still far below 90s levels. We don't know why, but lots of things are strange in this year of Covid-19 3/ https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/trump-rnc-murders-crime-shootings-protests-riots

But notice in any case that Trump wants us to discount the terrible economy and only remember the economy of 2019, while obsessing over recent crime and forgetting the low crime of 2019. Funny how that works 4/

In any case, what Trump hopes is that suburban housewives will look at the diversity of, say, Jackson Heights and see a terrifying dystopia 5/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/27/arts/design/jackson-heights-queens-virtual-walk-tour.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Arts

I don't think it will work, but I guess we'll find out 6/