Yesterday, President Trump took to Twitter to deride Joe Biden for his work on the 1994 Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act. Trump insinuated that Biden’s support of the bill, which imposed steep sentencing guidelines and some of Biden’s presidential opponents have criticized, would keep black voters from supporting him.
It’s hard to understand the president’s exact political motivation here. Maybe he thinks the crime bill is a serious stumbling block for Biden in the primary and wants to elevate it as an issue, playing political adviser to Biden’s opponents, as it were. Maybe he thinks he can force Biden to double down on his support of the crime bill, and alienate the social justice wing of the party in a general election. Maybe he’s just stirring the pot.
Whatever he’s doing, the crime bill is not going to take Biden down. Not yet, anyway.
The reason Biden is safe on this front is generational. Basically, if you are more than 40 years old, you might think the bill was draconian, but you can remember how bad the crime crisis was in 1994. If you are younger than 40, and have no such recollection, it may very well seem like a needless and reactionary measure. Most of the electorate is older than 40. They have a context for Biden’s choice that makes it seem, even if one disagrees with it, entirely understandable.
Pollster Frank Luntz weighed in on this question in response to me on Twitter today.
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04.23.2024