Any criminal threat in Aurora is dwarfed by the rising MAGA crime rate

Editor’s note: This was originally published ahead of Trump’s campaign stop in Aurora on Friday.

In announcing former President Donald Trump’s visit to Aurora, the Trump campaign outlined the Republican presidential nominee’s crime-fighting goals.

The Biden administration’s border policies have left Colorado’s third-largest city vulnerable to criminal migrants who have “turned once-safe communities into nightmares for law-abiding citizens.” Trump, the announcement said, would deport these “criminals” and “make America safe again.”

Most Americans realized long ago that Trump lacks normal regulatory qualities like consistency and shame. Embarrassment could deter most criminals from making reckless criminal accusations against others. Not Trump. And he cares even less that his dire characterization of Aurora, where he is scheduled to speak on Friday, is a complete fabrication.

But law-abiding citizens should take his absurd rhetoric as an opportunity to reflect on the breathtaking scale of banditry that is a fundamental feature of Trumpist politics. Any policy that purports to make America safe again would have to address MAGA’s violent tendencies and criminal behavior patterns.

One of the most startling moments of Colorado’s 2024 election cycle came during a candidates’ forum in January, when the simultaneous admission by two-thirds of Republicans on stage that they were fit for arrests provoked not a moment of humility and regret but rather hilarity a limousine.

Among them was Lauren Boebert, a sitting congresswoman who is scheduled to appear with Trump in Aurora. Two of them were state legislators, and all wanted to represent the residents of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the nation’s capital. Her confrontations with the law led to no apparent reservations about her suitability for the office, either in the audience or on stage.

This expression of lawlessness was nothing short of hypocritical for the former Law and Order Party, whose members reflexively embraced the fear-mongering of a “crime wave,” particularly in the context of immigration.

The current 4th District representative, MAGA Republican Greg Lopez, recently gave a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives in which, like Trump, he claimed that Venezuelan criminals were terrorizing Aurora. Almost the whole thing was false, but what is true is that Lopez himself has a criminal record. He and his wife each pleaded guilty to harassment following a domestic violence incident in 1994. Lopez was mayor of Parker at the time.

The Colorado pattern is consistent with the Republican Party’s MAGA evolution. No previous presidency in U.S. history compares to the Trump administration’s record of misconduct. At least eight of Trump’s close associates were sentenced to prison. Many others around him have been convicted of crimes, charged with crimes or faced formal disciplinary action, such as former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, whose law license was revoked in Colorado after she pleaded guilty in Georgia to aiding and abetting false solicitation Statements and writings.

Although previous Republican administrations produced scores of lawbreakers — there were dozens of Nixon-era Watergate indictments — Trump wins criminal gold for being the first president to achieve felon status. He faces felony charges in two other pending cases, and a jury in a civil trial concluded he raped a woman. One of the criminal cases against him relates to his role in the violent January 6 insurrection, in which Trump was charged with inciting and in which more than a thousand people have been criminally convicted for participating.

When Trump appears in Aurora, he will be by far the most consequential criminal to ever set foot in the city.

Aurora came into the national spotlight after conservative local figures, particularly City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, spread the false claim that Venezuelan gang members had taken control of several apartment buildings in Aurora. The city’s police chief debunked the claim, and even Jurinsky has walked back some of her rhetoric. But the national right-wing media championed it regardless of the facts, and Trump used it as a talking point for an anti-immigration campaign. He mentioned Aurora last month during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and later promised that he would visit Aurora, slandering the entire city by claiming it was so dangerous that “you may never see me again.” will see”.

Aurora police recently arrested a handful of people they identified as Venezuelan gang members, and Aurora residents should be grateful for this routine response from local law enforcement.

But the suspects had not taken over any part of the city. And whatever threat they posed to the community is dwarfed by the threat the Trump gang poses to the country.

This first appeared on Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network operating as a 501c(3) charity, supported by grants and a coalition of donors. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence.