Murder rates are at their lowest point since 1900, and on today’s edition of The Editors, Charlie makes a point of stressing this important stat.
“The 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s were violent,” Charlie reminds listeners. “There was a reason in 1994 that the Contract with America, a national manifesto more akin to that which would have been put out by a British political party, was full of promises on crime. And that was that it was one of the main things people worried about. And in the time since, we have seen a continual — albeit with peaks and troughs — drop in the crime rate.”
Charlie says, “There’s this tendency in our politics at the moment toward negativity. It’s a weird form of nostalgia. Everything was apparently better in the past. It was apparently better to live in the 1970s than it is now, economically. ‘Remember those wonderful 1970s? Not like now.'”
He doesn’t agree with this sentiment: “Crime is by many estimates at the same level as it was in 1900. It is at a 125-year low.”
“I feel like Margaret Thatcher saying with some indignation and irritation in her voice, ‘Rejoice! For goodness sake! Rejoice!’ This is good,” Charlie says. “This is a thing that as Americans, we should be really thrilled about.”
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