4456

The DJT campaign in a nutshell. Perfectly stated.

4457

Ok Decommidfy is even worse than disbanding.

The professor in the WaPo article I linked said.

Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need.

It is an easily understood explanation, and lends itself to saying like “cutting the pork out of police”
If to use an example, instead of tasking police with the job of removing homeless folks from tourist and commercial areas to social services, and increasing their budget. You’ll not only get support for homeless, advocates but many conservatives and liberals alike.

Oh and since a fair number of police shootings involve mentally disturbed homeless, you may actually save some lives in the process.

4458

Pretty much.

And very much this. The best way to kill someone these days seems to be to have the cops preform a Wellness Check on them.

4459

I guess it depends on the objective. If it is to scare moderates and conservatives and terrify them into supporting Trump’s call for invoke the insurrection act of 1807, than disbanding police departments is a terrific slogan. Slightly more refined than the 60s slogan of “butcher the pigs”.

If on the other hand objective is to actually change how policing is done in the US, than vinraith is right it is shitty branding.

4460

I have a fear. That the BLM protest will sputter out and we won’t get change.

To explain that fear, I need to go back in time to 2011 and the Occupy movement where the 99% was coined. The original outrage and protests were there - not quite as big as BLM granted, but they had legs and got a lot of media attention.

After weeks of protests without a real demand, a few people somehow banded together and they created a declaration that was so many pages and contained so many demands, it was quickly discarded when it was finally produced and the protest sputtered out overnight. While I"m attributing it to this mess of a declaration, there may be other nuances that caused it to fail but this document to me is what caused me to lose interest.

Now back to my fear about BLM and how these are related.

BLM encompasses a lot of things. “Defund the police” is now becoming more talked about, but I’m seeing so many small organizations come out with their interpretations of these - and people being people, these lists are getting quite long.

BLM is complicated. How do you stop institutional racism that’s been going on for hundreds of years?

I think it is a mistake to start creating lists. These lists will get too unwieldily and break under the weight as everyone wants their voices heard - and while the items on the list will all sound reasonable, they don’t resonate like “'Black Lives Matter”.

We have no central group taking this and controlling the message. Personally, I think that Joe Biden could get his black leadership council and take control of this and use it as a primary campaign objective, but it needs to be kept very focused and I fear that without focus, the momentum and passion that we have today could sputter out.

I hope not, and I don’t think it will sputter out for several weeks to be honest, but I’m already beginning to see some posters that attempt to explain what “Defund the police” means and while I think that is one small component, it really will need thoughtful people thinking about how to address BLM.

Is this fear unfounded?

4461

That is a fear, but I think protestors aren’t going to give up this time- they’ve got more leverage than they ever had due to the pandemic, and on top of that, I think they know deep down if they fail here, the police will get even more brutal.

I think the police and protestors are going to continue until one side breaks. At a minimum this continues towards the election.

4462

Not at all. Historically it’s happened quite a few times.

But a lot of people are sick of it, so this feels like a moment where it might not, but precedent is against it.

4463

BLM has no national hierarchy and as a result has no real central group. Civil Rights does. We still have Civil Rights leadership out there and actually present, on the ground with BLM. We have politicians, notable ones, that are also out there. They can help and have a strong reason do to so with the backing of allies that were simply not present for Occupy.

So yes, the fear if founded, but the foundation is stronger now.

4464

I was wondering how folks were gonna fuck up the widespread goodwill that BLM seems to be getting now…

Suggesting that we get rid of the police seems like that’s exactly how it’ll go down.

Like, the wide middle of the country’s political spectrum can totally get on board with stopping cops from murdering people. That’s a pretty solid win.

But saying that we’re gonna get rid of all the cops? Yeah, that is going to FAIL, IN A HUGE WAY. That shit simply will not fly, at all. Only far left fringe elements are going to get on board with that.

So if that becomes the talking point, then congrats, everything was for nothing and you’re screwed.

And you can try to spin it however you want, about how defund the police actually means something else or whatever… but there are folks on TV talking about how they literally do not want cops. About how they want to take all the money that is spent on cops, and spend it on other types of social programs instead.

This isn’t going to play, folks.

4465

Someone’s not doing their reading.

image

4466

We must be entering the “people on the sideline lecturing the people who’ve been working the social justice beat for years about how they’re doing everything wrong” phase of the protest movement.

Don’t worry, black folks. White people are here now to fix you.

4467

It’s not about doing the reading. It’s about watching what folks are actually saying. The BLM folks who made Minneapolis’ mayor take a walk of shame literally said they do no not want cops. There’s video footage of that. That’s the video footage that will be played in ads. There are others who are saying that they do not want to fund cops, at all, and that they instead want to fund other stuff.

I totally realize that not EVERYONE is on board with this obviously terrible idea, but at this point “defund the police” is going to be spun that way, because there’s no real coherent message associated with it.

Just say you want to FIX the police. Just do that. Everyone will get on board with that.

4468

I don’t know if you’re directing this at me. It feels like it, so I’ll respond that I’m more like the cheering crowd in the stands, who wants you to desperately win, but I’ve seen many 1 mile runs where the leader in the first 440 ends up last at the end of the race. My cheering has no effect, but in the back of my mind, I’m hoping I’m wrong and I wish you’d pace yourself a bit more.

4469

What was the statement that showed up here before, years ago… that the worst thing Black Lives Matter did was not add the word too to it. And then the worst thing was having someone kneel and ruin someone’s sport’s fantasy. And then it was terrible because someone’s road got blocked and they couldn’t get their coffee or they were late to work…

Time after time after time sideline coaches just lob don’t, wrong, can’t, won’t… in the direction of this movement. Now we not only have a number demonstrations across this country but also in other countries. And for some reason I am thinking that watching an old man get shoved to ground and getting his head cracked open by militarized cops who have forgotten the entire serve and protect part of their role and just gone full out in beat those fuckers down mode isn’t going to be forgotten because someone gets a little displeased with yesterdays 2 minute conversation in front of a mic.

So instead of telling people what they can’t do and why they shouldn’t do it, if you’re that concerned about it, step up, step in and voice your ideas as a leader instead of joining the same ranks that keep telling people if only they did it different, peacefully, be good… as if black people haven’t tried it all sorts of ways before, as if the attempts, the pleas, the anger, the demands, the legal fights never happened. Because of course they did, and still we had a young woman shot to death in her sleep, a jogger gunned down by racists whom the police refused to even pursue, and a man choked to death by cops in such a short period of time anyway.

4470

Minneapolis seems surprisingly onboard.

4471

I tend to agree. Marketing matters at the end of the day.

You can shit on people for not reading, and justifiably, imo, but when it comes to electorate, it’s not going to happen.
I’m already seeing push back against Defund the Police quite a few places and it hasn’t really even been adopted.
Just keep the same ideas and find a better slogan for it. New Blue. Fix the Police. Demilitarize the Police. Whatever. Focus Group it if you have to. People agree with the basic ideas overwhelmingly.

4472

They’re busy protesting. It’s the job of other people who are not getting their heads cracked open by batons or being shot by some white supremacist or being gassed to get those slogans right. This is literally coming from people who are in the protest, random people risking it all… It’s not going be perfect. And it never needed to be Black Lives Matter too.

4473

It wasn’t aimed at you, actually, but neither is “defund the police” aimed at you. The audience for that message is mostly Democratic governors, mayors, and city councils who are the audience that matters here because they’re the ones that run most of the big states and cities that contain large minority populations and out of control police departments.

I doubt very much that anyone is very concerned that rich, white suburbs and exurbs are going to defund their departments.

4474

Well let’s see what happens then. Because, like I said, they literally told the mayor that they wanted NO POLICE. That was what they said they wanted, on camera, to the mayor.

So, either they’re gonna get something else, which is fine… or they’rre gonna get no police, and it’s going to be a fucking disaster, and then Trump will use this as an excuse to say, “See, the Democrats want chaos and crime!”

Because really, without cops, you’re gonna have crime. Because why wouldn’t you? Especially if you’re ALSO saying that people can’t have their own guns.

I mean, everyone realized that you do in fact need police, right?

4475

Something needs to be torn down so that something new can take its place. Tearing down seems essential to the movement. New Blue sounds like pablum but at least it acknowledges the need for complete overhaul.

Beyond government, I want bold, new rules for society. For example, get that Confederate flag the fuck out, everywhere.