2. Although some in the media keep saying, this ‘little spike in crime’ is still no where near the late 80s/early 90s homicide highs, that’s not true for a number of cities. Philadelphia equaled its all time high murder rate in 2020 (499 deaths in 2020 vs. 500 deaths in 1990) and is on pace to well exceed 600 by the end of 2021. For comparison purposes, Philadelphia had 124 murders in 1962 with a much larger population (2,000,000 in 1962 vs. 1,500,000 in 2020). Although I want to be wrong, in another year or so nationwide homicide numbers should be back to the early 90s.

3. The history of excessively leftist policies leading to urban collapse in the 1960s/70s has been, effectively, memory-holed. Even discussion of the ‘so-called the Ferguson Effect’ is barely tolerated in respectable circles and the narrative regarding causation has now coalesced around the pandemic, lots of gun sales, poverty, people not trusting police, etc. That fact that events are repeating themselves on a national scale within the lifetime of a whole lot of people (who should remember all this from the 60s and 70s) and the media/academia are acting like this never happened before is scary and a testament to the power of the left. Nationally, people are beginning to notice the crime wave and want action, but the left is now only allowing the discussion of a limited set of options to combat crime, options that the left approve of. Getting tough on crime (a policy that saved tens of thousands of lives–mostly black and brown lives) is not an option to be discussed among polite society. Given the greater control the left has now over the megaphone vs. the 1980s/90s, voices of reason offering tough on crime options will not be tolerated. Getting tough on crime would seem like a perfect Republican message, but mainstream Republicans are doing little to drive home tough on crime policies lest they be viewed as racist by the press.

4. Urban academics and criminologists have been some of the worst performing groups in any field, offering no solutions or horrible solutions to crime. The left’s policy prescriptions to fight crime have been offered and been failing for decades. No one has ever held them accountable. Yes, there are exceptions, but their bad advice led to huge body counts in the 60s/70s, 80s/90s and now the 2020s. Prior to 1960, the US was a much harsher, much poorer, less regulated (what gun control laws), more segregated society and yet, people weren’t killing each other in any where near the same numbers as they did in the more enlightened 60s/70s/80s. Moreover, Republicans got little long term recognition for their tough on crime policies that saved so many lives starting in the 1990s. Crime policies that worked (and saved countless lives) are now deemed racist and memory-holed.

As a practical matter, urban America will have to put up for this for years to come.