Discussion of “Defund the Police” slogan

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Do you mean permanently stationed at the school? What proportion of Americans do you think would answer yes to that? And when did they first start appearing?

Please read this entire thread:
https://twitter.com/texasinafrica/status/1270425006321872898

[“ears”, above, is of course a typo for “years”]

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all of those involve giving more money to the cops to run those programs. and as has been pointed out by others, we’ve done that route before.

even necessary reforms like bodycams means allocating yet still more money to police.

so what to do? if you remove the need for things that require body cameras (etc), then you don’t need the money for them in the first place.

reallocate money from the police to new and existing organizations that can do ticketing and traffic safety, that can do drug rehab and job training, that can perform mental health and safety calls, that can respond to noise and nuisance complaints.

we don’t need more or different “policing”. we need less policing. so yes, defund the police.

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OK, cool, let’s just meet the people who will merrily chant about repealing Obamacare (without a replacement), locking her up (without due process), and building a wall (without a plan) in the middle on messaging even though they’ve been the shrillest advocates for defunding “entitlements”, “regulatory bodies”, and “international cooperation”.

The cat is out of the bag with “defund the police” being the main messaging. Given the plasmatic nature of current media, concerted campaigns to re-brand various policies no longer work. You get maybe an hour after a breaking event to shape how it’s talked about. So, given that we’re here, we might as well make the best of it and not compromise on defunding the cops.

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Nope. Not even after a kid stabbed another in the face for throwing a cookie at him in the lunchroom.

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Is that called „rightsplaining“? :grinning:

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It certainly seems that way.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41086.htm

You do realize there are other people in the world, right? People who voted for Trump, but didn’t chant those things. Frighten them, and they might do it again. We’ll have 4 more years of Trump, but at least you can feel good you stuck to your guns on “defund the police” staying the main messaging.

I never suggested otherwise. But you do have more than one hour to shape how that defunding is discussed. Otherwise why bother even mentioning it? Everyone has already decided, haven’t they?

Or maybe they haven’t and you’d like to not only not compromise, but also not lose.

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OK, I’m tired of the repetitive and limp tactical discussion, so please put your money where your mouth is now:

What amazing slogan should we be using for the current moment?

What, in your august political experience in changing hearts and minds, is the better strategy?

How are you sure that it’s slime-proofed from the InfoWars and OANNs of the world?

How will you ensure that your milquetoast sloganeering doesn’t just get co-opted by brandwashers?

What actual change can your amazing slogans carry on their backs? If they fall short of actually achieving change, how many more dead brothers and sisters do we need to endure for you to get off your high horse?

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All it needs is to repeat a thousand times that “defund the police” doesn’t mean “no more police” or “police armed with bows and arrows against gangs with assault weapons”. The right propaganda is already making use of those tactics, it’s PR wars everywhere. So yes defund the police and also make sure people get what it really means.

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Someone already gave one:

This is NOT about slime proofing it. I never said that. I did say don’t go with something that is EASY to, in your words, slime. Don’t go with something that invites people to misunderstand without the assistance of Infowars and OANN.

People are carrying a slogan on their backs? It should at least be effective in persuading those who aren’t on board. Because if you push them in the other directions, you’re fucked.

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Yes the left needs every vote, but there’s two problems: first is the right will intentionally misinterpret any phrase you can think of. The second is I’m confused why people seem to treat “undecided” voters as being hell bent on voting republican unless the Democrats do everything in some single nebulously defined perfect way.

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Yeah. I hate to break it to you. They’re still going to vote for Trump. They might even lie about it afterwards, but they totally are. Beating him isn’t about converting his base, it’s about getting everyone else to vote.

I have some family members who’ve objected to “defunding the police” and “abolish the police.” I’ll tell you what I have told them: maybe, just maybe, we should listen to the people who have been most affected by white supremacy in the US on this one. I’d say that’s a tough call between African Americans and Native Americans, but I think you’d find, if you polled Native Americans, they’d defer to African Americans on this one.

Abolish the Police

Finally, there’s a great segment by John Oliver on why reform doesn’t cut it.

And as a very late edit/addition:

Maybe it’s “tactical.” People who hate black still love “tactical,” right? :wink:

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Except “Reform, Reimagine, Retrain” has been tried and has failed for over a century. Why use the name of a failed strategy?

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Just because something doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that the thing that was wrong was that it didn’t have a bad name. Picking a bad name for a reasonable movement literally doesn’t get you anything. It just pointlessly scares boring suburbanites that you actually need to vote for stuff. The actual name “DefundPolice” was a gift to the people opposing police reform.

I think the worst part is that, besides being a bad name, it focuses on the wrong damn thing. The problem isn’t the police budget; it’s the corruption. The large police budgets are just a symptom of corruption, and hardly the worst symptom. This needs to end with someone trustworthy and empowered watching the watchers; the funding is secondary. The rage is cathartic and all, but it’s perfectly pointless if this doesn’t end in actual legislation that changes the system.

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A LOT! Don’t know where you live, but as of 2014, 68% of high schools had at least one cop

And just so we’re clear, I’d prefer for that to be 0%.

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As a boring suburbanite, with lots of boring suburbanite friends and relatives, and please pay attention:

Boring suburbanites are protesting the fucking police. Boring suburbanites are on board with defunding the police.

EOM.

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I was in the between times when we had the equivalent of a fake mall cop at our school, but now that I say that I’m pretty sure the malls still around near us have real cops too.

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Oh shit. I didn’t realize that we had won and we had all the boring suburbanites on board. I was all worried about a conservative backlash happening before any sort reform happened. I was super worried that history might repeat itself for the thousandth time, and a sudden rapturous leftist victory might lead to overreach before accomplishing anything, losing momentum, and failing in the brewing conservative backlash.

But apparently I’m just a stupid worry wort, and we have this in the bag. Nothing can stop us this time! We have all the suburbanites on board, and that’s a lot of people! We don’t need to think with victory so utterly inevitable! We just gotta get pumped up and believe! Everyone is with us for the long haul! I can feel it! I believe!

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