If the midterms are really a choice between “crazy and common sense,” maybe start by using facts instead of campaign fiction.
Democrats did not have an “open border.” The Biden administration had serious problems with historically high illegal crossings, but an overwhelmed border is not an open border. The government continued arresting, detaining, returning, and deporting people who had no legal right to remain. In FY2024 alone, ICE removed 271,484 people, the highest number in a decade and more than ICE removed in any single year of the convicted felon’s first administration. Across DHS, FY2024 removals and returns exceeded 685,000, the highest since 2010. Biden also imposed new asylum restrictions in June 2024, after which illegal encounters between ports of entry fell by more than 60%. That is the exact opposite of an “open border.”
Then there is your “Democrats want to raise your taxes” line. President Biden promised that families making less than $400,000 a year would not see their federal taxes increased. The major tax increases he signed targeted enormous corporations and high-income taxpayers, while the IRS specifically directed its new enforcement resources toward wealthy taxpayers, large partnerships, and corporations rather than households making under $400,000. Imagine that, a president making a promise and keeping it. It would be nice to get back to that.
And “allow criminals to roam free on our streets” may be the dumbest part. The FBI’s final 2024 numbers show violent crime fell another 4.5% that year, murder fell 14.9%, robbery fell 8.9%, rape fell 5.2%, and aggravated assault fell 3%. By the end of the Biden administration, violent crime was at or near a 50-year low. That happened after the murder spike that began in 2020, during the convicted felon’s first administration.
And Democrats were hardly abandoning police. During the Biden administration, the Justice Department invested more than $17 billion in state, local, and Tribal public safety grants, including more than $2 billion through the COPS Office and more than $650 million specifically for hiring police officers. The American Rescue Plan also helped state and local governments avoid cuts to police and other essential public-safety services.
So your three claims are “open borders,” “higher taxes for you,” and “criminals roaming free.” The actual record is aggressive immigration enforcement and a decade-high number of ICE removals, no federal income-tax increase for families making under $400,000 under Biden’s pledge, violent crime near a 50-year low, and billions poured into state and local law enforcement.
That isn’t “crazy vs. common sense,” JD. It’s your campaign rhetoric versus the government’s own numbers.
And spare me the line about Republicans fighting for “an America we can all be proud of.” Under this administration, we have higher costs, more division, weaker alliances, political retribution, attacks on institutions, and a government that seems to manufacture chaos faster than it solves problems. You can wrap that in as many flags as you want, JD, but there is nothing patriotic about making the country worse and then demanding people applaud.