Just a quick post to move into a diary a discussion I’ve been having in comments (and with my daughter, who’s been in Lafayette Square most days this month). Because when you’re trying to advance political goals (which is, as Obama said in another context, the point) rhetoric matters. Good slogans are pithy. They fit on a bumper sticker. They point toward the advocate’s real goals, without making it easy for opponents to turn them into a readily-attacked “straw man.”
All too predictably, opponents of police reform are seizing on “defund the police” to paint police reformers as pro-crime. See, e.g., www.politico.com/… (“Some progressives’ calls to “defund the police” also will figure prominently into the campaign this week as a way to paint the Democratic ticket as too liberal for centrist and independent voters, an [anonymous Trump campaign] official said.”) When advocates for “defund the police” are called upon to defend the slogan, they explain that they really mean thorough reform. They explain that “defund” means focusing police on investigating and supporting prosecution of violent crime, while turning the response to drug use, domestic violence, and mental illness over to institutions better suited to social work, and budgeting accordingly. They explain that it means de-militarizing the technology and tactics used by law enforcement. They explain that they want better cops, not zero cops. They explain that they want effective (but non-abusive) anti-crime civic institutions.
”Defund the Police” doesn’t capture those nuances. Quick test: if the only policy change on the table were to slash police department budgets, while making no other changes, would it get consensus support among “defund the police” advocates? And more important, would it win an election held five months hence? The answer to the second question is surely no. And as Mr. Kos is fond of saying, in politics, when you’re explaining, you’re losing.
REBUILD the Police, I respectfully submit, is better rhetoric. (Better even than “REFORM the Police,” as was suggested here: www.dailykos.com/… ) It signals that the aim is not a surrender to crime, but constructive and thorough reform. It evokes what losing sports franchises do in order to become winners. It doesn’t specify exactly what changes would be made, but no sufficiently pithy slogan could do that. It’s designed to not just seize attention from those already predisposed to support the cause, but more important in the long run, start a good conversation with neutral but persuadable voters.