On 5/22/2021 3:21 PM, Leroy N. Soetoro wrote:
> https://nypost.com/2021/04/17/moderate-democrats-squirm-as-defund-the-
> police-returns/
>
> Moderate and swing-district Democrats are squirming with the aggressive
> return of the Defund the Police rhetoric following the death of Daunte
> Wright at the hands of a Minnesota cop.
>
> “There is always room for reforms and to do better, but defunding the
> police makes no sense,” New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer told
> The Post. “I think more investment and training should be put in, things
> like cameras are something that law enforcement supports. But the idea
> that we should gut budgets for the sake of it is absurd.”
>
> Gottheimer added that Democrats he knows in Congress support law
> enforcement and were “grateful” for their service.
>
> Over the last week progressive lawmakers from safe districts have swung
> for the fences on the issue. “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib has led the
> charge. “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be
> reformed,” she said in a tweet Monday.
>
> On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chimed in: “Cameras, chokehold
> bans, ?retraining funds, and similar reform measures do not ultimately
> solve what is a systemic problem.”
>
> Cori Bush, a newly elected progressive Congresswoman from Missouri, said,
> “Remove police from traffic enforcement.”
>
> Top Dems, including President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have
> already moved to distance themselves from the issue. Republicans flipped
> 15 House seats in the 2020 elections and Democrats are bracing for an
> uphill battle to keep control of the chamber in 2022. Few have an appetite
> to play defense on defund, which polling suggests is supported by fewer
> than 1 in 5 Americans.
>
> “Saying you want to defund just ends the conversation and shuts the door
> to so many people who could be on our side,” one staffer who worked on a
> losing 2020 Democratic House campaign told The Post. “We had to spend
> time, energy and resources refuting and rebutting attacks that were based
> on the words and actions of others.”
>
> “It was not something that helped us,” the staffer said of the progressive
> agenda item contributing to the demise of his boss.
>
> Even fellow progressives are nervous about the renewed calls for
> defunding.
>
> “The police should be focused on genuine police issues, and should be
> better paid and trained,” MIT professor and liberal icon Noam Chomsky told
> The Post. “As to whether it’s a good slogan now, probably not. Too much
> distortion. The important message has been obscured and falsified.”
>
> “Defund the police” — and its even more radical cousin “abolish the
> police” — became a rallying cry for the progressive left in the wake of
> the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis cops last May.
>
> Amid a summer of race riots and looting, city governments across the
> country moved to acquiesce to protester demands. In New York, longtime
> pro-police pols like City Council Speaker Corey Johnson turned on a dime,
> demanding deep cuts to the NYPD.
>
> Some municipalities went further. Minneapolis lawmakers voted to
> completely dismantle their police force in favor of a more “holistic”
> approach.
>
> “We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of
> Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety
> that actually keeps our community safe,” Council President Lisa Bender
> told CNN in June 2020.
>
> Crime swiftly surged, and the department has since spent $6.4 million to
> hire new police officers.
>
Good article.
The elections of 2022 will swing in a lot of
districts if the Democrats keep this slogan.