On Wednesday I watched Donald Trump make his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He talked about an America that I do not see. An America being torn apart at the seams, under constant threat of attack and besieged by violence and hopelessness. Many news outlets, among them The New York Times, The Washington Post and POLITICO, agreed that Trump's speech was dark and described an America that does not exist. In reality, things are not that bad. We should not be afraid. We should not live in fear. We should go out and enjoy the birds and sunshine because we live in the safest and the most peaceful time in human history.
We live in a time when we have a tremendous amount of information and awareness at our fingertips, but even with that advantage, or perhaps because of it, many are often mislead to believe we are living in one of the most dangerous times in our world's history. Part of this misinformation is due to media sensationalism so blatantly used today that creates a biased image of events, another part is due to the fact that politicians like to use fear mongering in order to get the support of the public on various issues.
During his acceptance speech Donald Trump stated that the convention was taking place during "a moment of crisis for our nation." He cherry-picked data in order to paint an alarming picture of increasing crime rates in the US, but they have actually been declining for years. We have all seen the news of shocking police brutality and retaliation against police officers, but that does not mean that crime is at an all-time high, as Trump has suggested. In fact, crime rates are at their lowest in 40+ years and they are expected to continue decreasing.
The above graph shows a decline in crime from the year 1993 to 2014, the latest year for which the data is available. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics
Terrorism has taken front stage in the world of news and politics today. With every attack comes weeks of news coverage and new opportunities for politicians to promote their agendas. We have to understand that as long as there is still violence in the world, there will always be something for the media to report. That doesn't mean that terrorism is not a serious issue, but it is not the worst it has been in history, as Trump has many times told his supporters. A recent poll shows that many Americans are more fearful about terrorism than at any other time in the weeks after the attack in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and Trump has used that fear to his advantage. There have been some grave terror attacks around the world, but they are not as high as they were in the 70s and 90s, yet people fear it more. That is because of the way the human brain works. People attach more importance to things that are easier to remember, like a terrorist attack that is out of the ordinary. A big event will be easier to remember than many small events, that is why it seems like we are less safe because we remember the big attacks that have taken place recently instead of many other attacks in history.
The chart shows the decline in the number of people killed due to terrorism in Europe from 1970 to 2015.
Trump painted a picture of a poverty-stricken America in his speech and wanted to project that the economy has taken a serious blow during the Obama administration but many of the facts he used were incorrect or misleading. Trump tried to convey such a message by stating that "58 percent of African- American youth are not employed" as a way to compare to other races and show how much poverty affects certain people. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of unemployment for June 2016 in the African American community ages 16-19 was just 31.2 percent compared to 14.1 percent in the white community. He also tried to instill fear of a weak economy by stating that there are "Forty-three million Americans are on food stamps," but what he failed to mention was that it is the lowest number since its peak in 2013. The correct statistics show an America with a growing economy, which is not what Trump wanted to communicate to his audience. Poverty is at a record low globally and is expected to drop more -- this is one of the great unheralded events in the last few decades.
This era is one of the safest time periods in human history. That is not to say that there aren't any problems like terrorism, crime, and poverty, but rather that it is not as violent as it once was . The reasons so many individuals have the misconception that the opposite is true is due to the fact that the media is more concerned overviews and politicians more concerned with promoting their agenda, that both disregard the truth we deserve. It is easy to feel like the world is falling apart with all the atrocities happening around the world and here at home, but we should not live in fear and forget how to live life.
