It often seems to me as if Donald Trump's view of the world is stuck in the 1980s. For one thing, he seems to think Japan is an export powerhouse, when the country has run a trade deficit for most of the past five years. Even stranger, Trump seems to believe the United States is caught in a nationwide crime epidemic. This was the centerpiece of his speech at the Republican convention in Cleveland. But the truth is that fears of a crime wave belong in 1986, not in 2016.
Here's Trump:
"Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration's rollback of criminal enforcement. Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America's fifty largest cities. That's the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation's capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60 percent in nearby Baltimore. ... The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 percent compared to this point last year."