More Denial: Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker took his “Denial of Reality About Chicago Crime” tour to the wrong venue
when he agreed to an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Baier asked him why Chicago has the highest murder rate among big cities. Pritzer denied that, claiming it wasn’t in the top 30. Baier then pulled up a statistical map, showing that it was, in fact, #1, with 17.47 murders per 100,000 people. Pritzker tried to brush off the whole idea of statistics and turn to blaming Trump, but Baier wouldn’t let him. He then argued that Chicago’s murder rate had been cut in half, apparently not realizing that just makes people think, “How bad must Chicago be if they cut the murder rate in half, and it’s still number one?!”
And as that story points out, that’s just the murder rate. It doesn’t even get into shootings that people survive, or other violent crimes, which can be made to seem less frequent by simply reclassifying them as misdemeanors or doing so little about them that victims give up even reporting them to the police.
He’s right that statistics can be made to lie. But nothing can lie like a politician.