Hot Air is not Twitchy, but I spend so much time on X that I can see the attraction of writing for our sister site.
Twitchy's shtick is, for the most part, doing the 2020s equivalent of what bloggers used to call "Fisking." The term "Fisking" is named after the journalist Robert Fisk, a writer so noted for being fast and loose with the truth that an entire genre of blogging was dedicated to systematically tearing apart everything he ever said.
He was that wrong, and taking his arguments apart was so entertaining that readers often looked forward to the takedowns.
While Twitchy specializes in an updated version--highlighting an absurd post by a liberal and then collating all the brilliant takedowns--it can never capture the full scope of some "ratios." A "ratio," in internet-speak, is when a post generates so many negative responses that the ratio of positive to negative reactions is so one-sided that it becomes humorous.
The Pravda/Democrat defense of DC's safety is generating a whole lotta ratios. When a "journalist" claims that DC is the Oz of the East Coast, they are just begging to be taken down.
This is an abhorrent headline.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) August 12, 2025
"Racist narratives"?
It's not a narrative. We have data. Even after a historic drop in homicide nationwide, Washington DC still has a homicide rate of 27 per 100,000, which is around five times our national rate.
Even if Trump's actions were… pic.twitter.com/9bUGdOk1zT
Before I get to some of the most ratioed posts, though, I want to highlight another, emerging genre--the over-the-top hyperbole that ridicules the breathless cries of "fascism" and "invasion."
DC is an absolute war zone right now. It’s only a matter of time until Trump sends in his ground troops. https://t.co/bhqWwbwLKB pic.twitter.com/mvkm7KPeos
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) August 12, 2025
The way Democrats and Pravda folks are talking, it's as if Trump is sending in the SS to round up the Joos, or at least every person with skin darker than Trump's soothing shade of Orange.
First bombs have hit DC. I’m sick to my stomach. Trumps war on DC will destroy the city. https://t.co/FcR1LQK2Qn pic.twitter.com/hI2IiNvlxT
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) August 11, 2025
OMG…I wake up to Trumps Stormtroopers dropping into DC. I’m sick. pic.twitter.com/kjalfRV3WO
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) August 12, 2025
Of course, that is hardly the case. What Trump is doing is federalizing the DC police--a move that the actual, on-the-ground police heartily welcome--and sending in about the number of National Guard troops it would take to fully staff the DC police force if the powers-that-be in the city actually employed the authorized number.
Too busy watching updated footage of the rampant crime and filth.
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) August 12, 2025
The city is short 800 officers because many have left and moved to greener pastures.
B-2 Bombers are now headed towards DC. Trump is escalating this war. Get out while you still can. pic.twitter.com/Xbzn9SVMfy
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) August 11, 2025
As liberals work up their outrage about Donald Trump wanting the city to be as safe as, maybe, Mexico City or Bogota--a stretch goal, I know--ordinary people wonder what the heck they are talking about. Washington, D.C., is literally less safe than Chicago here in the United States, and is one of the least safe capital cities in the world. Washington's murder rate is 6x that of Kyiv, although as PBS helpfully notes, Washington is safer than Cape Town, South Africa, and Caracas, proving that Trump was lying when he said Washington was the least safe capital city in the world.
At least we have that going for us. We are better than Caracas! Trump is such a liar...
🚨NEW STUDY: In May, the DC police commander was suspended for falsifying crime data. Yet over the last 24 hours, CNN and MSNBC have cited these stats 73 times with no mention of their shady origin. pic.twitter.com/yXaLHpoxv0
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) August 12, 2025
One of my favorite ratios is that of a post by the X feed "Washington Problems"-a site, ironically, dedicated to highlighting public safety issues in the capital. Washington Problems is offended that people outside the District are hearing bad things about its beloved city, so he asked readers to list positive things about DC.
Whoa. Bad idea. The ratio got so bad that the feed stopped accepting responses.
I was robbed right in front of a police officer, on a college campus, and she did not intervene.
— Sam Raus (@SamRaus1) August 12, 2025
In 2011 I walked too close to a mentally disturbed beggar on McPherson square, two blocks from the White House, who screamed “BITCH! BITCH!” at me angrily enough that I had to check for weapons and get across the street asap.
— Kind Scribe (@kindscribe) August 12, 2025
I love that I don’t live there now.
I love how a kindly security guard offered to walk me three minutes down the block from the Capitol Hill Club one time, and I said, “You know what — yeah.” Just warms the heart.
— Nicole the Ostrich Hunter (@Nicole_in_DC) August 12, 2025
I got stabbed on the metro by a homeless vagrant
— Matt DeLuca (@MattDeLuca) August 12, 2025
Four people were shot outside King Street Oyster in 2024, and the D.C. chief of police blamed the restaurant for not properly locking up their patio at night.
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyJr1) August 12, 2025
No, this actually happened:https://t.co/Bis30mcP0h
A local "youth" wearing a @sweetgreen uniform, followed me through a @wmata fare gate. He then got stuck and tripped on my luggage, and then assaulted me in full view of the station manager, who did nothing.
— The Acerbic Avia✈️or (@CaptainConcurs) August 12, 2025
I've been held up at gunpoint, had my car broken into 3 times, and had my bike stolen. My credit card has been skimmed too many times to count and I cant send my kids to public school here because they're a joke.
— Bret Manley (@bretmanley) August 12, 2025
It was really cool when a guy headbutted me on the metro after I asked him to stop blasting music through his phone speakers.
— G.S. Quay (@hemingquay) August 12, 2025
And then there was the time a bum spat on me for no reason.
There are over 400 similar replies, so you can understand why Washington Problems shut off responses. The original post zipped around the world a few times, proving that the Streisand effect is very real.
Then there is the DC City Councilman, who is all-in on police "reform," who wrote a screed about Trump's trying to clean up his city. Hundreds of people flooded into his thread, bashing him, not Trump, pointing out that he is one of the authors of DC's crime problem.
— Timothy HJ Nerozzi (@TimothyNerozzi) August 11, 2025
You failed. pic.twitter.com/5DSCkUIDlR
— Sean Agnew (@seanagnew) August 11, 2025
The best response came from the DC Police Union, which pointed out the obvious.
Very brave of you to post this since it is entirely your fault. https://t.co/ovjgO9pxhz
— DC Police Union (@DCPoliceUnion) August 11, 2025
The reason that there is so much attention on law enforcement and crime in DC is because in 2020, @charlesallen championed some of the most anti-police legislation in the country. Five years later, the MPD now has only ~3,000 cops with more than 800 vacancies for the position of… pic.twitter.com/h0H8smcn5w
— DC Police Union (@DCPoliceUnion) August 8, 2025
Then there are the "journalists" who live outside DC, lecturing everybody about how crime is a fake issue. My favorite is from a reporter who lives in Arlington, and his argument is--literally--that there is no crime problem in DC because he has yet to be carjacked.
What kind of moral rot must possess you to advocate for violent crime. As you say, you live in Virginia. The people of DC and the visitors to DC should not have to run a gauntlet every day.
— Lady Hecate (@hecate40) August 11, 2025
"I'm a reporter who was never carjacked so DC must not have much crime." 🥴
— Leftism (@LeftismForU) August 11, 2025
Ron there ware almost 500 carjackings in DC last year. There were 1000 in Chicago. Chicago has almost 4x the population and only 2x the number of carjackings.
— 1967mustangman (@1967mustangman) August 11, 2025
This is the typical attitude of the elites in the media. Because they did not get mugged, that invalidates the victims of an entire city. Imagine being this smug with a case of main character syndrome.
— Jacob Airey (@realJacobAirey) August 12, 2025
It never even occurred to an actual journalist to look into what happens in the real world. The problem doesn't effect him, so it doesn't exist.
Moral rot is right.
Only Democrats would think DC murders dropping from 183 to 170 is something to celebrate:
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 12, 2025
"If you want an idea of how bad crime is in D.C., two summers ago, an Afghan interpreter who worked with U.S. special forces and escaped after Biden's disastrous Afghan withdrawal was shot… pic.twitter.com/E3PhV7nHKe
Only Democrats would think DC murders dropping from 183 to 170 is something to celebrate:
"If you want an idea of how bad crime is in D.C., two summers ago, an Afghan interpreter who worked with U.S. special forces and escaped after Biden's disastrous Afghan withdrawal was shot and killed in a carjacking.This is a guy who survived the Taliban but couldn't survive working as a Lyft driver in our nation's capital.
"Congressman Henry Cuellar was carjacked. You had an aide to Senator Rand Paul who was stabbed four times trying to get a burrito bowl. You've got a congressional intern who was shot and killed near the White House. You have two embassy staffers from the Israeli embassy who were just murdered. You had a DOGE staffer who was beaten within an inch of his life during a carjacking."
You have to ask yourself, why would Democrats oppose federal assistance in making DC safer for them and their staff?
There are many, many more examples of the divide between The Narrative™ pushers and the people who are experiencing reality on the ground. You can find countless examples of journalists and politicians making absurd claims about Washington's safety getting trashed by real, live people whose lives have been turned upside-down by crime in the nation's capital.
It is fascinating to watch, in a car crash sort of way. While most Narratives can be sustained by dirtying up the facts--false statistics, repetition of propaganda--some things cannot be swept under the rug. Rising prices, crime, supply chain shortages, and similar issues that are directly experienced by people are hard to paper over with pretty words.
The "inflation is transitory" narrative never worked because the money came out of everybody's pocket. No amount of gaslighting in 2021 could convince moms that baby formula was on the shelves, and nobody who is worried about carjackings because 3 of his neighbors were assaulted can be told that crime is no big deal.
But the "journalists" and politicians are doing their best. It's just not working.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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