'The Five': Murder and crime rates spike in Democrat-run cities - is it a control play?

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The Five' blast Democrats for blaming crime spikes on COVID

'The Five' discuss who liberals think is to blame for the crime spike in the United States.

As Democrat-led cities lead the country in what has become a nationwide spike in crime, "The Five" discussed the possible reasons why liberals in power have allowed the endangerment of their citizens to get worse by refusing to revert to law enforcement solutions proven to work.

Host Dan Bongino mentioned how 9 of the top 10 cities experiencing violent crime spikes are Democrat-led. 

One example, Philadelphia, now leads the country in murder rate-per-capita among large cities – with more than 300 people killed on its streets in 2021 through July. The birthplace of the United States has not had a Republican mayor since Bernard Samuel in 1952, while the late former Mayor Frank Rizzo – who left office in 1980, did become a Republican in his later years.

According to the FBI's uniform crime reporting program, Detroit and St. Louis topped the 2020 list of most dangerous U.S. cities – both heavily Democratic.

On "The Five," Bongino noted that some Democrats are now blaming coronavirus for the crime surge:

"They say the spike in crime is because of the pandemic and the media is eating it up. What about defunding the police, no-cash bail, and soft on crime policies? The FBI released new numbers that showed murders soared 30% in 2020," he said.

Bongino added that Democrats have seen what works – pointing to his own hometown's former mayor, Republican Rudy Giuliani, who with the help of police commissioners like Bernie Kerik and Howard Safir, cracked down on crime during his tenure at the turn of the century with proactive policing measures.

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Co-host John Rich added that criminals see Democrats both blaming coronavirus and continuing lax law enforcement policies and are overjoyed.

"That’s a bad guy’s dream," he said. "But the question is, why on earth would you want your town to be like that? Like the people in charge who are making the decisions, why are they putting us in that position?"

"And the only thing I can think of --it's mainly liberal cities out there -- What’s the thought process? They want destruction, chaos, these things, why? So they can have more control over their town? Maybe the wilder it gets, the more they can clamp down?"

"That’s the only reasoning I can find behind it."

In May, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also commented on "progressive"-run cities seeing rises in violent crime:

"Minneapolis defunded cops by millions of dollars. The District of Columbia’s city council approved $15 million in cuts. These bone-headed decisions are the direct result of an anti-law-enforcement fad that has swept through the political left like a wildfire," he said. 

"I’m not sure exactly how the rantings of far-left Twitter about crime and policing became official Democratic Party dogma in so many places across America [but] what I do know is that ordinary Americans cannot bear much more of this."