Crazy Train

Trump voters are obsessed with imaginary crime because America has always terrified itself with crazy crime stories

Crime drives people crazy.

Not because of crime itself. It’s the perception of crime that does it.

I say this because we’re in the midst of a cycle I’ve seen many times as a Gen X child of the 70s and 80s who grew up to be a journalist. When crime goes up, newspapers, magazines, and television shows fill themselves to the brim with stories of heartbreaking crime, spectacular crime, and terrifying crime. Opinion sections and investigative shows pick at the speculated reasons behind the crime increase, spinning ever more elaborate theories even if a pretty simple one is sitting right there.

When crimes goes down, well, the news is still filled with stories of murder, robbery, rape, and depravity because those things are rare — they’re rare for the vast majority of people, even in a crime wave — and because they are rare that makes them news.

The absence or reduction of crime? Not as newsy, so it doesn’t get saturation coverage and quickly finds itself buried on inside pages or completely of…