Liberals Want ‘Defund the Police’ to Mean ‘Reform.’ It Doesn’t.
In these trying times, it’s difficult to find something to smile about. But I’ve found some modicum of mirth watching very sympathetic liberals go the extra mile to help hone the message of activists calling to “defund the police.” For instance, Katy Tur, an MSNBC anchor, had Isaac Bryan, the executive director of the Black Policy Project at UCLA on Meet the Press Daily to explain what “Defund the Police” really means.
“Isaac, thank you so much for joining us. Let’s talk about what this means because I think there are a lot of people out there who hear ‘defund the police’ and [think] it means abolishing a police department. It doesn’t. So can you explain it to me?”
Bryan very politely replied that he disagreed with the premise of the question. Defund the police doesn’t in fact preclude abolishing the police. Bryan says the term means taking that idea “as far as the political imagination and the political will of our leaders across the country is willing to push this idea.”
Most Democratic politicians understand that actually abolishing police departments root and branch would be close to political suicide (and terrible policy). Even Sen. Bernie Sanders is against it. They also understand that nobody in America wants the Democrats to embrace this idea more than Donald Trump.
