Trump, the MSM, and Swedish crime
So, first thing that happened was that Trump made an ambiguous and poorly-worded remark about Sweden’s crime and how it relates to immigration:
…[T]here’s also a problem with Trump that I see in [his statement] “you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden.” I understand the explanation. He meant that if you looked at TV the previous night, you could have seen a segment on Tucker Carlson that was about Sweden. That eliminates the confusion caused by his slightly screwy language that had lots of people wondering about something that supposedly had just happened in Sweden.
Trump isn’t just not lawyeresque in his speech (and since most people hate the way lawyers speak, they probably consider that a good thing); he’s often so imprecise and vague that the MSM and opponents can project whatever meaning they want into his statements. Now, this would happen anyway, but why give them so much of a golden opportunity? Why not make them work a little harder, and be less plausible in their misinterpretations?
But that’s not Trump’s way. I see it as a problem, although I’m sure a lot of Trump supporters see it as a plus, and see him as leading his opponents to make stupid statements themselves and having to correct them later. The trouble is that the correction doesn’t always reach all that many people.
So, what happened just a few hours after this particular war of words? Riots in areas of Sweden in which many immigrants live:
The [predominantly immigrant] neighborhood, Rinkeby, was the scene of riots in 2010 and 2013, too. And in most ways, what happened late Monday night was reminiscent of those earlier bouts of anger. Swedish police apparently made an arrest around 8 p.m. near the Rinkeby station. For reasons not yet disclosed by the police, word of the arrest prompted a crowd of youths to gather.
Over four hours, the crowd burned about half a dozen cars, vandalized several shopfronts and threw rocks at police. Police spokesman Lars Bystrom confirmed to Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper that an officer fired shots with intention to hit a rioter, but did not strike his target.
The issue about which Trump was originally speaking was whether the influx of immigrants in recent years has increased crime in Sweden. The WaPo takes pains to offer a statistic that says no: “The newspaper Dagens Nyheter analyzed crime statistics between October 2015 and January 2016 and came to the conclusion that refugees were responsible for only 1 percent of all incidents.” But as Hot Air points out, that’s somewhat misleading:
Sweden’s overall crime rate is down since 2005 despite having admitted many thousands of migrants and refugees in the years since. Preliminary data for 2015-16 also shows no rise in overall crime, but it did show a rise in assaults and rapes accompanied by a drop in drug crimes and theft. (Sweden hasn’t published crime stats showing an offender’s immigration status for more than a decade.) One Swedish criminologist interviewed by the Times conceded that immigrants are overrepresented among offenders, “particularly in more serious and violent offenses,” but that many victims of crime are immigrants too, which is what you’d expect.
I think that perhaps the most interesting thing in that paragraph is that Sweden stopped compiling statistics on immigrants and crime over ten years ago. This had to have been purposeful. It certainly has had the effect of obscuring the issue and making it even more difficult to say anything intelligent about it. Lumping all crimes together and then seeing if there’s been a general increase or decrease tells you almost nothing about what proportion of crimes are committed by immigrants and what types of crimes are involved.
The MSM coverage on this incident only highlights their dishonesty. People can figure it out. MSM in full opposition to Trump.
The articles about this issue in the MSM have been highly misleading and intended to convince the average American consumer of news whose knowledge of Sweden is minimal or nonexistent that the there has been no social cost to the massive influx of unskilled immigrants from all over the Islamic world. In fact, not only is there a great burden on the country’s infrastructure and little or no attempt by the authorities, in thrall to the cult of pathological altruism and multiculturalism, to encourage assimilation, but most of the migrants are young men with unenlightened attitudes towards women; young Muslims are, in point of fact, responsible for countless barbarous assaults on women, with judges often excusing their behavior and handing out ludicrously light sentences, even for such crimes as gang rape, which was hardly in evidence in Sweden before the official adoption of a suicidal policy of demographic transformation.
Some type of official account for the country of Sweden was bragging about the low murder rate. But little solace for all of the new rape victims. Liberals are insufferable.
Once again, Salena Zito’s campaign observation proves prescient:
Couple that with a MSM that insists on tweaking anything Trumo said into what they wish he said and, as the Blogfather says, “This ius how you get more Trump.”
It would be nice if Trump spoke more precisely. It would be really nice if the press were not parsing and twisting every statement to try to make him look bad.
As I read the statement, there was really nothing wrong with it. Room for misinterpretation? I suppose. Pundits could, of course, have asked him exactly what he meant before dishonestly going off on him.
The news this morning tells of serious rioting in guess where? Sweden.
(I recall that the Media claimed that Ike’s thinking was muddled because of the syntax when he spoke. On the other hand, if anyone cared to notice, his writing was a model of clarity. Some thought he deliberately spoke as he did for reasons of his own.)
Once again cannot see comments until I make one
I’ve followed the horrors of rape and gang-rape in Sweden, which the authorities are definitely trying very hard to downplay because it makes them look so bad. There’s a Swedish blogger who posts in English and writes well about all this. It really is a horror story. Malmo, has become virtually a “no-go” city — and I believe this is the second-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm.
Several popular Swedish crime-novelists set their books in Malmo… as it was.
In January, several Arab immigrants repeatedly raped a young woman while posting the entire crime Live! on Facebook. I’ve seen screenshots of their leering faces over the woman in the bed — unbelievable.
Believe me, this got a great deal of attention in Sweden, even if feminists in America remain unsympathetic to women raped by Muslims because this doesn’t seem politically useful right now — I guess.
However, many people–mostly people with less education than anyone here–find Trump’s speaking style appealing. You constantly hear from supporters things like: “He really lays it out so you can understand” or “He’s brutally honest, not like most politicians.” I personally prefer people who speak, if not like lawyers, at least in complete sentences with no dangling participles or other modifiers, but I’m not a very representative American.
We have close friends who live in Stockholm. He is a native and she is American who became a citizen 30 years ago. They know that the government/media are lying. The islamic horde they have allowed to enter have been committing serious crimes far beyond the rate of just 10 years ago. There 50+ no go zones in a number of cities. Police are overwhelmed and officers are leaving their jobs at a high rate.
The Swedish government purposely does not keep crime statistics identifying the ethnic status of criminals. The younger generations are myopic and caught up in the multicultural diversity BS. Older Swedes are afraid and cautious about where they go and when they go there.
Its a shame. Stockholm is a beautiful city, it is my favorite city to visit in all of Europe. And the Swedes are, once they get to know you, delightful and generous people. We will continue to visit our friends and enjoy central Stockholm and the more rural areas of Sweden (our friends have summer cabin about 100 miles north of Stockholm). BTW, if you ever visit Stockholm, allow for 5 days to take the ferry to Gotland and roam around the island. The peace and quiet, the old churches, and the sea food will make you feel as if you have left the turmoil of the 20th and 21st centuries.
miklos,
I have also been reading about Malmo for quite a while, as well as the bannlieus of Paris, the carbecues, and the NeuKoln enclaves. I had no problem figuring out what Trump was saying. It makes you think that most of the media folks are very poorly informed about the world. But then again if you listen to the pundits who take up so much time on CNN, you realize what a parochial bunch most of them are, and the anchors are even worse.
As though on cue . . .
BEGIN PASTE
Leftists Are Strangely Quiet About What Happened In Sweden Last Night
February 21, 2017 By Robert Gehl
In an amazing ironic twist, just hours after President Donald Trump linked rising violence in Sweden with their mass migration policy, refugee riots broke out in the suburb of Rinkeby, where many immigrants and refugees live.
The riots — where cars were overturned and set ablaze and shops were looted, were in the Stockholm suburb that witnesses said “looked like a warzone.”
Local media is reporting that police retreated to a nearby gas station after being forced to fire warning shots in the air as groups of around 30 thugs pelted them with stones.
END PASTE
[ snip ]
http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/leftists-are-strangely-quiet-about-what-happened-in-sweden-last-night
expat,
They must know, they choose to ignore and prevaricate. Useful idiots each and everyone. They think when at last the crocodiles come to eat them their appetites will be satiated. Useful idiots who think they are marshalling in the utopia of totalitarian socialism. But by using the jihad horde to destroy the right; they are asking to be raped, sold into slavery, beheaded, or perhaps put in a cage and set on fire. Useful idiots.
I saw a comment on another website talking about the concept of stray voltage. Apparently, the term has been around for a while. It makes sense with both Obama and Trump.
“The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness. This happens … sometimes especially when, the White House appears defensive, besieged, or off-guard.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-pen-phone-and-stray-voltage/
Another story: http://www.breitbart.com/blog/2014/04/17/how-obama-is-trolling-america/
MJR,
What Happened In Sweden Last Night is the result of Swedish discrimination in jobs. That will be and already is the explanatory meme.
“Useful idiots who think they are marshaling in the utopia of totalitarian socialism. But by using the jihad horde to destroy the right; they are asking to be raped, sold into slavery, beheaded, or perhaps put in a cage and set on fire. Useful idiots.” parker
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. But never fear, once other avenues of escape are closed, they will convert. As saving their own hides is the only thing they really care about.
“Saving their own hides is…”
True, but swimming the river with a scorpion on your back never saves the frog.
I really struggle with whether the media knows about these things or not. Saw an interview with Katy Turr on MSNBC with a (R) congressman who referenced the famous Obama ‘I’ll have more flexibility after the election’ comment to Medvedev and Turr claimed to have no idea what he was talking about.
Lying or incompetent?
I suppose if ethnic Swedes start purposefully killing immigrants, no one will notice since statistics are not kept in a manner which would reveal it.
Right.
Sweden’s crime stats are ‘down’ only because the officials are ‘leaning’ on the statistics.
The joint is a liberal fascist state.
Griffin:
I would bet she either never knew it or had forgotten it almost immediately after she first learned it. Unless you read a lot of conservative media or blogs, it was easy to miss, albeit important. On the right, we talk about tons of things that happened that almost no one I know follows. That’s one of the hard things about political conversations between the two sides. The frames of reference are completely different, for the most part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FluvpeD6lhQ stefan moleneus and a Swedish woman journalist on this matter. Detailed.
Neo@ 9:51
Talk about different worlds. My wife is a big lib and devoted NPR listener. The arrogance of economists came up tonight and I brought up Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obama Care. Who? said my wife. Yikes, thought I.
Neo:
Well I can certainly understand that with an average person with a life to lead but for a professional journalist covering national affairs that is inexcusable. She’s obviously of the left and doesn’t want to highlight an embarrassing instance for Obama but to not acknowledge it in this context is weak.
Tur tweet ed that she ” researched the veracity of the remarke and acknowledged that it occurred but she was preoccupied reporting on murders and other serious crimes.Funny I will working group 40 hours to at a job and managed to be aware of it.
Not drunk last sentence done on phone (burp)
Molly:
Somehow I think if that was President Romney then she would have found time away from the crime to hear about it.
DNW Says:
February 21st, 2017 at 8:41 pm
“I think that perhaps the most interesting thing in that paragraph is that Sweden stopped compiling statistics on immigrants and crime over ten years ago.”
* * *
From the post:
“The newspaper Dagens Nyheter analyzed crime statistics between October 2015 and January 2016 and came to the conclusion that refugees were responsible for only 1 percent of all incidents.”
If they aren’t keeping stats for immigrants and crime, how did the newspaper reach this conclusion??
Sweden’s crime stats are ‘down’ only because the officials are ‘leaning’ on the statistics.
Also because they have ceded territory (as no-go zones) to those who operate under sharia law and don’t report incidents to police at all
AesopFan:
That 1% statistic is very odd indeed. Fourteen percent of the Swedish population is now foreign-born. Are we to understand that they are far more law-abiding than the native Swedes? That certainly makes no sense. But by the word “refugees,” perhaps they don’t mean “foreign-born.” Perhaps they mean “recent refugees”? If the latter, what percent of Sweden’s population falls into that category? Is it less than 1%, in which case the refugees would in fact be responsible for an amount of crime that’s disproportionate to their numbers?
It’s impossible to know what’s going on here unless we have access to the article. But there’s no link, and my guess is that it might be in Swedish anyway.
AesopFan:
I found a little more on the subject, although nothing very illuminating. Here’s the best article I could find that’s in English, in addition to this one. Hard to tell what it all means, except (as that second article indicates) that reported crime statistics are not necessarily meaningful and their significance is difficult to understand.
Griffin:
Oh, I agree that it’s inexcusable. But there are a lot of ignorant journalists. All I meant was that I don’t think she was lying.
“It’s impossible to know what’s going on here…”
Ah, but that’s precisely the goal…..
Nonetheless, the European elites—those wise European elites—may be about to find out what the commissars discovered a generation or so ago: that while you can fool some of the people some of the time you can’t fool all of the people all of the time (it is, after all, Presidents’ month…).
They must have thought that if they had the media on their side, then the obfuscation and misrepresentation (i.e., lying) would be a piece of cake.
Reality, though, can be a funny thing….
(The tax authorities are now going after Marine le Pen and her party. This can only mean that the French elites are very, very scared…..)
Neo
Oh, I agree that it’s inexcusable. But there are a lot of ignorant journalists. All I meant was that I don’t think she was lying.
We are back to the fool or knave question. 🙂
Neo, the three most recent threads show that comments have been posted- # of comments- but the comments are not visible when I click on the article. Which I believe is something you previously posted on.
Neo, now the comments show.
Keep fighting Trum, all those that need you as their meat shield and hero sacrifice, are waiting in the wings to turn on their king once things no longer go their way. Such has always been the way of humans.