4375

I do think a lot of people like to point out that children aren’t racist, and as an adult I absolutely realize those little kids are mimicking what they see and hear and get positive reinforcement too. As a kid who wasn’t allowed to be a kid as long as other kids get to be, those kids were awful and the first realization of that kind of experience is… cemented.

4376
4377

I think he’s too old. Although we do have our current war of the septuagenarians.

Romney is currently 73. If Trump wins, there’s no point in Romney running for anything. If Trump loses, Romney will be 77 next election.

I think there is just goodness in Romney’s heart and he feels compelled to do right in this situation. I think it’s possible to be for rich people (what was his comment about the 47%) but not be for racism. Similarly you can be for rich people but still realize that Trump’s attacks on democracy are bad — both because Fascism is bad in and of itself, plus because in the long term, Trump style kleptocracy is going to lead to the US being a second tier power, which ultimately will be bad for stock portfolios.

Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think Romney has an ulterior motive here.

4378

Well, this sounds promising for Minneapolis.

4379

I agree. The depressing thing is that of all the currently elected GOP officials in Congress and Senate, he is the only one.

4380

Some of that was heartbreaking stuff. Great podcast episode, but depressing as all fuck.

4381

Definitely. Really sad about the timing on Flake and Corker’s re-elections. If they had been up for re-election in 2020 or better 2022, I like to think they would have stood with Romney. Also McCain might have done so as well.

I’m also really surprised that so few Republican donors realize that Trump is a long term threat to them. I dunno, maybe they figure that they can just pull up stakes and move to another country, or they figure they’ll be part of the in crowd.

But if Trumpism runs the country into the ground long-term, the pie is going to shrink, even if they still have a bigger piece of it.

4382

Did I just miss it, or did that statement completely fail to account for how they’re going to deal with violent crime? I mean, moving traffic enforcement to its own thing, drug stuff to its own thing, these are all reasonable plans, but somebody has to be around to deal with violent crime.

4383

Disbanding doesn’t mean not having police.

4384

I don’t think Romney is going to run for president. I think he’s happy being a senator for as long as he chooses, and then going away. He’s too old for the presidency.

I think Romney, like many Mormons, genuinely opposes Trump, and the current GOP on a moral basis.

Also like many Mormons, he has libertarian leanings that will prevent him from ever becoming a Democrat, but he’s not dumb. He knows that Trump’s way is not only immoral, but simply stupid.

4385

That’s my gut level reaction to the word. It sounds crazy to large segments of the population. So there needs to be a better explanation.

4386

Eh, or seems like it kind of does, given that it’s being specifically presented in contrast to dramatic reforms in the police department.

The people telling at that mayor were straight up saying that they don’t want police.

And that seems nonsensical.

4387



4388

I agree. It’s really stupid phrasing. De-militarize the police yes, reform the police yes, increase oversight yes, rebuild from the ground up yes, eliminate the police no.

It’s the same thing with having border guards. Democrats running around saying they are going to get rid of the border patrol might as well just be tossing out centrist votes and saying they want Trump to win. If they want to rebuild the system from the ground up, great, they should do it. But just saying they are going to get rid of it is stupid — both from a political point of view and a realism point of view.

In both cases something needs to fill that void, preferably something completely reformed, rebuilt, with better defined methods and objectives. But you can’t get rid of it and not replace it with something else.

4389

We managed without full-time police for about a hundred years.

I’m not saying that’s the solution at the end of the day, but people act like police have been around forever when they really haven’t. Shit like quotas and the like are part of the problem on top of all this. “Go find X crimes this month,” is a stupid metric. Because cops will find those crimes even if they didn’t exist.

I doubt Minneapolis goes full “no police force”, but if they do, then that’s their call and we’ll see how it works out and what we can learn from it. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of the MPD? Literally nothing at all would be a better option than most of that force on street.

I suspect a major city wouldn’t be able to do it with the gun control restrictions they have though. If some dude shows up at Target with a shotgun and no one can legally be armed or even really stop him, you’re gonna have issues to say the least, which is the sort of hypothetical scenarios that you do have to consider, imo. If there are no police, what happens if the Cochise County Cowboys show up downtown? It’s a valid concern.

4390

I’d imagine they’re looking at a place like Camden.

4391

Not well. Homicide, and other violent crimes were 10 to 100 times current rates in the West and other places without full time police forces. I don’t even want to go back to the 70s and early 80s when crime rates were twice what we have today, much less the Wild West.

Let’s be clear the biggest victims of crime throughout history are poor people

4392

Different context, but perhaps of relevance:


Summary: “Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Georgia had been known for its levels of corruption, especially in its police force. As a result of the ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2003, the government began a process of reform by sacking all the existing police and creating a smaller force of new recruits, with the help of the international community. The reformed police force became one of the most well-regarded institutions in the country.”

The US State Department provided major assistance to this program, which is interesting. It’s almost as if they could do something similar with local police (or could have under a past administration).

4393

Would you mind providing a source for this?

4394

Well they should use accurate words to say what they mean, otherwise they are going to get nowhere, because defunding police will overall be a political loser. They shoud say reform, or reorganize if they mean that. I’m guessing most people are looking to what Camden did.