Biden tries to nix 'defund the police,' once and for all

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Defund the Police is a stupid slogan that cost Democrats a number of seats in the 2020 elections. Joe Biden is correct to try to kill this stupid talking point.

Link to tweet

It’s not news that President Biden opposes the “defund the police” movement. He said as much when the movement got off the ground two years ago. Since then, the unpopular idea has fallen even more out of favor, living on mostly in the comments of a handful of liberal hard-liners and in attacks from Republicans seeking to attach those comments to the broader Democratic Party. It’s the kind of thing that politicians are usually loath to talk about because they have already addressed it, and it should be a nonissue.

And yet, Biden decided to broach the topic in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The apparent purpose: to try to put an end to it, once and for all.

It wound up being perhaps Biden’s biggest bipartisan applause line of the entire night, save for his early comments on Ukraine.

“We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police; it’s to fund the police,” Biden said.

I understand that the Justice Democrats are still pushing this slogan which is sad

[raging moderate]

1. I love good police officers.

Last edited Sun Mar 6, 2022, 10:17 AM - Edit history (1)

I have always loved good police officers, ever since they intervened in my out-of-control mentally ill alcoholic father's tantrum, when I was 8 years old. My father punched my mother in the nose, so hard that she was soaked in blood all the way down her clothes. She ran out of the house, but returned the next minute FLANKED BY TWO HUGE POLICE OFFICERS. They looked like angels to me. My father stopped in mid-rant, his jaw suddenly hanging open. "DID YOU DO THIS?" one of them demanded in an even tone. My father started whining like a 10 year old boy: "well, she said..." "SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP," said the police officer in a very controlled tone. My father obeyed, and was the best-behaved 10 year old I have ever seen, while they asked my mother, "Do you have someone you can call?" These two wonderful men stood over my father for the next half-hour, while she called her brother and packed a few things. if they had thrown tantrums as well and beat up my father, probably I would have wound up a basket case. But they stayed calm and watchful, and extremely in control of themselves and my father. I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, WONDERFUL POLICE OFFICERS WHO CONTROL YOURSELVES AND SPREAD CIVILIZATION. AND PLEASE, OTHER POLICE OFFICERS, GET A CLUE. LEARN HOW TO SPREAD CALM AND PEACE AND REASON. J0E BIDEN IS RIGHT!

[comradebillyboy]

2. Biden is right.

[leftstreet]

3. Which Democrats actually ran on "Defund the Police?"

I didn't think anyone did.

It was my understanding the notion sprang from grassroots organizing, not from the Democratic party

[sheshe2]

5. Several.

I am not naming them.

[leftstreet]

9. The OP said they lost seats

I was surprised because I didn't know any Democrats lost seats by running on that slogan

[Budi]

12. Down ballot in State & local races. Dems weren't saying it but Republicans sure were!

It was the perfect slogan to attach to a Dem candidate. And it stuck.
Thanks for nothin 👎

[sheshe2]

14. They said cost us seats and they did.

We may not have lost a seat held, yet lost us one we could have won.

[betsuni]

15. That means it was used against Democrats in general and hurt them in close elections.

Republicans say the Democratic Party is controlled by the far left, point to those who have used the slogan and said things like "Defunding police means defunding police." Democrats in deep-blue districts who used the slogan weren't affected because no Republican could win there anyway.

And of course Republicans will make things up, but this is real even if a handful of people. Like those who say the Democratic Party isn't progressive, corrupt "corporate Dems" while everyone can see it's two Democratic senators holding up Biden's agenda.

[Lunabell]

6. Many on this site in 2020.

And it's not really even true! Such a poor choice for a catch phrase and I said so then. I understand the importance of demilitarizing the police and funding community resources for change, but "defund the police" as a slogan was just stupid politics.

[bigtree]

21. that's just not true

...post one.

[betsuni]

7. Cori Bush said last month she'll still use "defund the police."

It's a Justice Democrats policy. "Defunding police" is still on AOC's official campaign website.

[dsp3000]

8. squad following Dems...

cory bush? rashida tlaib? there are others. cant think of their names.

dumb, all of them, even though their hearts may be in the right place.

[bigtree]

23. you named three, and with absolutely no context

... this is why the republican demagoguery works, the shorthand accusations without any qualification or any fair and accurate representation of what these stalwart Democrats have actually said.

So three, out of how many Democrats?

Btw, I can cite dozens of things said by some Democrat somewhere that hurt the party. Attacking Democrats for something republicans complain about is wrong on its face. It's always surprising to me to find so much agreement that Democrats should stifle their beliefs because republicans will attack them. I can't think of any phrase or word uttered by three people somewhere that is more self-defeating than that.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

18. No democrats in a competitive district ran on this

The GOP used quotes from members of the Squad and other progressive types to run every effective attack ads. I saw some of these ads in my congressional district even though the Democrat was not running on this. However, it is clear that we lost races that we should not have lost Defund the police was used very effectively by the GOP in down ballot races. A good number of races that Democrats should have won were lost due to this issue.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

The GOP ran a ton of ads using this issue

Sure enough, Republicans saw an opportunity. Painting Democrats as supporters of “defunding” the police became the focus of campaign literature, TV and digital ads, and live televised debates. That forced Democratic candidates to divert resources that might otherwise be used discussing COVID-19 relief, health care or education to be used disavowing themselves from the slogan and otherwise defending themselves.

Out of 31 broadcast TV ads that Trump and other allied campaign groups used to attack Biden and other Democrats for being soft on law and order, 11 spots ― that aired a total of 77,647 times ― explicitly mentioned “defund the police,” according to an analysis Kantar Media/CMAG conducted for HuffPost. And out of 216 Republican broadcast TV ads in congressional races blasting Democrats, 157 spots that aired 103,000 times used the phrase.

I was disappointed to seen Susan Collins re-elected. It seems that Collins was able to use the "defund the police" issue very effectively

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and the GOP’s Senate campaign arm hit her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, in a TV ad for links to a “defund the police” billionaire. The basis for the ad was Gideon’s attendance at a fundraiser hosted by an environmental coalition that includes NextGen America. NextGen, funded by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, supports defunding the police.

This idiotic meme killed a ton of good candidates. We lost a ton of races that we should have won.

Link to tweet

These ads were effective. For example these attacks were used in the Maine Senate race which Susan Collins won

Link to tweet

This line of attack was used in South Carolina against Jaime Harrison

Link to tweet

[Dorian Gray]

19. There are a few

who publicly admonished Biden for his position. Cori Bush is listed in the article.

[JHB]

4. It won't stop the main people pushing that phrase: The RW argle-bargle machine

They pluck anything from anywhere if they can wave it around to enfoam their audience.

[highplainsdem]

10. Good! Agree completely that it's a stupid slogan.

[mcar]

11. After SOTU, that stupid slogan should be well and truly dead

[Budi]

13. Thank you President Biden.

[summer_in_TX]

16. Safety and security is high on the list of basic needs.

The perception of being unsafe leads to fear, which in turn leads to wanting a stronger police presence.

The Justice Dems do not realize how counter-psychology their "defund the police is." While they apparently don't believe in spending the time or money to reform the police, anything that happens to improve policing will come only from Biden's kind of approach.

Plus, there are some genuinely decent people in the profession.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. Biden makes his midterm message clear: 'Fund the police'

Again, defund the police is a very stupid slogan and this slogan cost Democrats seats in the 2020 election. Joe is clear that he wants to fund the police and has rejected the stupid concept of defunding the police

Link to tweet

With homicide rates increasing in some major cities, support waning for reducing police funding and Republicans aggressively pushing a “law and order” midterm message, President Biden declared in his State of the Union address this past week: “The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them.”

Although this has long been Biden’s position, the blunt statement brought Republican lawmakers to their feet in applause, provided a bumper-sticker-size sound bite to Democrats running in swing districts and confirmed to dismayed activists that the once-widespread desire to overhaul policing has lost its momentum.

In June 2020, amid nationwide racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, about a quarter of Americans supported reducing police funding by a little or a lot, according to a Pew Research Center survey. By October 2021, that support had fallen to 15 percent. There were even starker drops among voters who leaned Democratic.

With the midterms eight months away, Biden and party leaders believe that coming out strongly in support of police will asphyxiate inaccurate Republican arguments that Democrats are anti-police, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy on a contentious issue. And the White House sees Biden’s stance as closer to where most Democrats and most Americans are, including many people in communities of color.

[bigtree]

20. he's trying to fight a republican canard

....they moved on to CRT.

Critics talk about these much more than supposed proponents. The political reality is that the defensiveness codifies in people's minds that these things had a rat's ass chance in getting legislated into being.

Maybe it'll work to just stand up and state unequivocally what you're for, rather than all of the finger-pointing inward as if takling about defund or CRT threatens someone. It's all part of the political theater now, though, like 'emails' which many of the same people wringing their hands over it were the people trying to convince us Hillary was damaged goods because of a bogus email controversy.

The more fealty is given these canards, for or against them, the more they become real in the public's minds. Better to treat them as just more republican bull and refuse to utter the phrases, pro or con, and avoid playing into the propaganda game.

It'll just be something else in the future that someone somewhere said that these demagogues and trolls start repeating like it's Democratic gospel. Find something better to talk about, imo.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. "We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police; it's to fund the police," Biden said.

The answer to what?

[bigtree]

24. the answer to the political canard republicans baited Democrats with in the last election

...why he's answering it is anyone's guess.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

26. Yeah it's weird...this country definitely funds the police. More every year, in fact.

[gulliver]

25. I'd like to see the "repeat message" be just "fund the police"

Take the issue completely away from Republicans. Don't just be against DTP, but be the party of well-funded, well-trained, true law and order. If we don't go long on being pro-policing (good policing), it gives Republicans a foothold for lying about us and saying we're about DTP.

[manicdem]

27. Precedent

I remember Biden and a lot of democrats denouncing "defund the police" when it was starting up. This is the kind of leadership we need. Those that dont go with the flow nor afraid of speaking out