I’ve had close to 50 jobs in my lifetime, and the worst was as a tire jockey one summer for a mobile truck repair service. And it wasn’t because of the actual work involved, though it was no walk in the park, either.

I’d sit all day in a van at a truck stop on I-94 in Indiana waiting for a distress call from a semi-tractor trailer driver with a flat tire. When a call came, I’d drive to the mile marker where a semi was disabled.

Drivers kept engines running in order not to lose pressure for their brakes, which made it all the more frightening to crawl underneath and wedge the jack under the axel, where the gravel was like hot charcoals, and where other vehicles were roaring by several feet away, as I worried that the diesel engine would suddenly slip into gear, crushing me to death.

The wheels themselves, once I removed them and the inner tubes for patching, were hugely heavy and as tall as me, with split metal rims that could explode apart while being inflated if they were not properly re-assembled.

That wasn’t the half of it. My boss, himself a trucker trying to boost income with this side gig, told me he was losing money, and that I needed to stand on a nearby overpass and sprinkle roofing nails onto the highway to increase business and save my job.

Can you imagine purposely destroying something in order that you might profit from being called upon to fix it?

That, of course, is the hypocritical stance of the Trump administration and his party in its so-called “mandate” to fight crime.

Why hypocritical? Because their opposition to sensible gun regulations leads to more violent crime, which they then point to in order to spread fear and exploit as a campaign issue.

Although nearly 70% of all Americans favor stricter gun control measures, including 91% of all registered Democrats, less than 25% of Republicans do so.

That stark difference was reflected in Congress when every single Republican senator voted against the gun safety Bill in 2022, and when they likewise blocked a bill in 2023 banning assault weapons and establishing universal background checks.

Their longstanding strategy to kill any and all restrictions to gun manufacturing and ownership have helped saturate the U.S. with 500 million guns, including those involved in 46,728 American deaths from gun violence in 2023.

So when Trump excoriated the mayors of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, he’s was blaming them for crime waves that he and his party have literally armed.

Just as cynically, he’s campaigning with showy invasions by the National Guard to supposedly reduce the crime numbers that were exacerbated by the actions of him and his party.

It’s not as if Republicans don’t know that the more guns you have, the higher the crime rate. A study by the John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence showed that the states with the highest rates of gun ownership “consistently” have the highest homicide rates. And the claim that having more armed citizens deters criminals is a fallacy, according to data gathered by the FBI.

Trump himself once expressed support for gun control measures, including an assault weapons ban in his first term. But he changed practically overnight after a visit and stern lecture from NRA leader Wayne LaPierre in 2019, after which he fell in line with most other Republican office holders dependent on campaign contributions and political clout of the organization that is, for all practical purposes, a political action committee for gun manufacturers.

It is a pretty clear picture of political power, fear and greed supplanting the will of the majority, but which Republicans have been able to hide by gaslighting Americans with false but weirdly effective messaging that they are tough on crime.

It’s an empty message, and the same kind of card trick as Trump’s changing the name of the Defense Department to the War Department. But that’s for another column.

Former Hayward resident David McGrath is emeritus English professor, College of DuPage, and author of “Far Enough Away,” a collection of his stories. Email him at profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com.

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