America Must Reckon with the Politics of Death

October 10, 2024 by Alex Rosado

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.

Why is there a spike in crime-related deaths? Tim Carney of the American Enterprise Institute attributes this trend to Americans becoming less trusting of each other. “Collapsing social trust,” Carney writes, “is the central problem in American culture today.”

Carney is right. We live in a time of high government regulation, low citizen morale, and middle-of-the-road federal “solutions” that cause more heartache than relief. That’s why, when crime-related deaths become politicized, people fight about social narratives rather than mourn the loss of humanity or address institutions.

We are dividing, not uniting, ourselves over death -- and that’s killing our society.

In the wake of tragedy, we must promote candidates who champion neighborliness to restore social trust. Crime is a public health issue, and the right leaders will recognize the lasting psychological trauma of cities like Memphis and work to console it. Community faith is imperative to breaking the cycle of loss, and we can discover that Troyer’s politics of death can be healed, not just avoided.

In "What is a Nation?" French philosopher Ernest Renan argues that family and community members who lost their lives are essential for national identity. Renan conveys that “a heroic past with great men and glory is the social capital upon which the national idea rests.” If a nation is a soul, as Renan contends, we must keep it healthy and functioning.

Still, security is not a guarantee. It is a fragile reminder that American democratic rights must be actively protected and exercised. The deaths and struggles of previous generations from crime create “social capital” and a sense of duty that should inform present-day civic participation and decision-making.

As Troyer and Renan suggest, nationhood is an ongoing project that requires active consent and participation from citizens. Voting becomes a way to affirm one’s commitment to the nation, state, and municipality and its shared history of triumphs and setbacks. With the politics of death, it is a motivator to restore the social values that make America great.

As the politics of death rattles Americans, we are becoming more crime-oriented voters. 58% of Americans believe reducing crime should be a top presidential priority, up eleven points from when Biden first assumed office. That’s why when Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, declares that “crime is down,” the Internet goes ballistic -- and rightfully so. People see, feel, and know this isn’t true.

Madeline Brame, the mother of homicide victim Sergeant Hason Correa, captured these feelings perfectly in her RNC speech this July: The American people “are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

This year, at the ballot box, voters should remember the dead and vote for the candidate they believe will end the rise of violence in our country.