Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Other than murder, violent crime is not up. Did you know that?

You can tell she is trying to be as patient as possible with us mouth-breathers. "Did you know that?," she asks in the manner a mildly frustrated kindergarten teacher might as she tries to explain to her students for the fifth time that raisins go in your mouth and not your nose.

Violent crime is a key midterm voting issue, but what does the data say?

What does the data say? Charen, an author and syndicated columnist, references a piece from Pew Research asking that question.

Indeed, leaving aside some serious questions over the efficacy of this data, "the data says" overall violent crime is down. However, that is only true if you focus on the years in which most of the country was shut down by the government over Covid. If you look closely, you see it spiking up a bit last year as the country reopened. Charen, and Pew, become mysteriously disinterested in what the data says once 2022 starts.

She does concede, almost as an aside, that even looking at her cherry-picked time period, murder did edge up a teensy-weensy bit. How much, and when?

According to the chart in the same Pew piece that Charen chose not to highlight, higher than we've seen in decades, and during, um, 2020, when most people were huddled inside their homes nervously waiting for Instacart, sanitizing wipes and latex gloves at the ready.

Again, that was 2020.

The Pew piece does entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, voters are reacting to, you know, things they can see with their own eyes.

There are many reasons why voters might be concerned about violent crime, even if official statistics do not show an increase in the nation's total violent crime rate.

One important consideration is that official statistics for 2022 are not yet available. Voters might be reacting to an increase in violent crime that has yet to surface in annual government reports.

Despite the relentless gaslighting, voters are noticing because they can't help but notice.

Don't you hate it when voters do that?

Speaking of New York... While national data is not available, local data is readily so, something Charen didn't bother to check. New York City for example updates crime statistics weekly.

Good news! Murder is down slightly in the Big Apple after the recent spike!

The bad news?

Ummm...

Rape is up 10.9%, robbery, 32.4%, and transit crime over 40% this year.

Quit your overreacting, voters, there's nothing to see here!

Stop noticing!!!

Because if you do notice, you're a racist.

You can tell people who care about increasing crime are racists because black people are the ones bearing the brunt of the increasing crime.

Don't think about it too much, they certainly didn't.

Everything is fine, people, we are in good hands.

In fact, your 401k is actually doing great! Did you know that?

According to the data, that is.

So, as you enter the polling booth this coming Tuesday, just remember to listen to your betters.