America Must Reckon with the Politics of Death

Candidates on both sides of the 2024 presidential election are hyping voters about its importance for the future of the U.S. and the survival of our democracy.

Voters would be wise to take it a step further and realize the stakes are actually between life and death.

In September 2021, the Director of the Centre for Death and Society, John Troyer, wrote that the politics of death “ become[s] a way to acknowledge all those who died and what should be done in the future to prevent more needless deaths.” At its core, politics is about human welfare and the discussion about which policies will best improve it. While politicians tout their efforts to reduce crime, citizens are the final judges.

We ought to vote for the fallen as they tell the stories of lousy crime policies that have fractured the United States.

This is especially true in cities where homicide and violence are surging. The Manhattan Institute reports that, from 2019 to 2023, homicides increased by 23% in New York, 23% in Chicago, 29% in Los Angeles, 16% in Philadelphia, and 29% in Houston. The 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) tracked that violent crime in urban areas increased by 58% from 2019 to 2022. Even in more suburban environments, such as Virginia, violent assaults on police officers increased, with more sustained injuries as a result. These are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters whose livelihoods are threatened or extinguished by bad governance.

The Biden administration is trying to defend its record, claiming violent crime is down. It isn’t. Unsurprisingly, left-leaning media is cheerleading this lie. The most recent NCVS commissioned by their Department of Justice rebukes their claims. The NCVS detailed that 22.5 out of every 1,000 residents were victims of violent crime in 2023. This rate was higher than the final year of Donald Trump’s first presidential term (16.4 out of every 1,000 residents).

These reports should taint the incumbency’s reputation of “law and order.” Our job as voters is to remember this and hold those who let crime run rampant to a referendum in November. Doing so manifests Troyer’s advice and lets politicians know its people prioritize pro-public safety and anti-death candidates. It’s a way of strengthening victim’s rights and seeking justice by honoring their untimely passings, using the past to mold the future.

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