Black Lives Matter picked the wrong ideas—Trump picked the wrong cities.
America just got over a decade of leftist virtue signaling in the name of Black Lives Matter, which ended up killing dozens of police officers and thousands of Black people. With President Trump’s proposal for a federal takeover of policing in Washington, D.C., and five other cities to cut crime, we may be entering a period of conservative virtue signaling about law and order. All Americans, but especially Black Americans, need a better way.
First, let’s admit where President Trump is right. As two of us show empirically in “Black Deaths: How Black Lives Matter Took Lives That Better Policing Could Save,” Black Lives Matter was a disaster, and likely part of the reason for President Trump’s underdog victory in 2024. The movement, which could have saved lives, ended up being taking over by professors and politicians who cared a lot about getting grants and increasing progressive voter turnout and little or nothing about saving Black lives.
Slandering police made citizens in high crime communities, disproportionately Black citizens, less likely to cooperate with cops to cut crime. Cutting law enforcement budgets and reducing prosecutions led cops to focus on protecting tourist zones and downtown business districts, with low income, heavily minority communities increasingly left to fend for themselves.
The results were predictably disastrous. As we show, for Black men homicide rates nearly doubled, from 30 per 100,000 in 2014 to 56 per 100,000 in 2021, while homicide rates among whites barely changed. While taking far fewer lives, fatal ambushes of police officers also rose dramatically in the BLM era.
Yet on whether President Trump’s move to have the FBI take over police departments is the right call, color us skeptical. First, while the unique rules governing the nation’s capital may give President Trump the legal authority to take over policing there, he likely lacks such authority in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York. That means that like the BLM activists he despises, the President is virtue signaling, not virtuously policymaking.
And then there is his choice of cities, which seem determined by politics rather than police performance. Our Administration and Society article, “Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter,” ranked the 50 largest cities in the country by whether, controlling for poverty, their cops keep homicide low while not shooting civilians, using 2020 data. We rank cities because some police departments already do amazing work and need no federal meddling. On the other hand, other departments deserve Washington intervention.
So how do the cities President Trump proposes taking over stake up? Baltimore ranked dead last, 50th out of 50, and Washington D.C. ranked 41st in 2020, though each city has improved somewhat in the past two years. Oakland ranks 36th. But Chicago was 27th, about average, and Los Angeles ranked 17th, right after law-and-order oriented Fort Worth, which is on nobody’s unsafe list.
But Trump’s most questionable call is proposing to take over law enforcement in New York City. New York has the 6th lowest homicide rate in the country among the 50 largest cities, the lowest controlling for poverty, and New York Police Department cops kill far fewer civilians per capita than any other large police force. From our data, New York had 1/15th as many homicides per capita as last placed Baltimore, and Baltimore cops killed roughly ten times more civilians per capital than their NYPD peers. In short, Baltimore has a shameful public safety record---New York excels.
To some, President Trump’s proposal to run NYPD reflects his battles with the leftist New York prosecutors who indicted him, not saving Black (and other) lives.
But suppose the President really does want to save Black (and other) lives? Here’s how President Trump could both make history and get more minorities to vote Republican. As both scholars document and former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton showed in his book, Turnaround, NYPD became the best by recruiting great cops, firing bad cops or at least getting them off the streets, copying its most effective police precincts, and firing precinct commanders who refused to go along with the changes.
President Trump could highlight police departments like NYPD that succeed---and those like Baltimore that fail. Constitutionally, it’s up to state governments and city voters to do the rest. Using the bully pulpit in this way could make President Trump the leader who made Americans safe again, especially Black Americans.
Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.
Wilfred Reilly is an associate professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University.
Patrick Wolf is the 21st Century Chair in School Choice in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.
Their views may not reflect those of their institutions.
