Democrats and Republicans Continue to Live in Two Different Worlds

Election Day is only a couple of months away, and a friend brings to my attention a new poll from Pew Research:

This seems relatively unsurprising except for one thing: violent crime. Why is that #5? A followup chart explains it:

Among Trump voters, violent crime is #2 behind perennial favorite “the economy.” Why? Because Fox News and the rest of the gang have spent the past few months screaming about cities in flame, BLM “riots,” and crime capitals of the world. In fact, though, the best evidence we have suggests that overall crime is down so far this year. So is overall violent crime. The only thing that’s up is homicides. Through the first half of the year, there have been a few hundred more than in 2019.

Now, a spike in murders is no small thing. There’s something going on there, and we don’t know what it is. Still, those few hundred additional homicides are dwarfed by a drop in other violent crimes that measures in the thousands. And property crimes are down by tens of thousands. Generally speaking, you’re likely to be considerably safer in a big city than you were last year.

This is just one example of the broader fact that Democrats and Republicans simply care about different things. Here’s the Pew data arranged by the issues most important to Democrats and Republicans:

Republicans care about crime, immigration, and guns. Democrats barely even notice these issues. Conversely, Dems care about the pandemic, race inequality, and climate change. Republicans could care less about them. We are living in two different worlds.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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