A while back Barack Obama made many Democrats and liberal pundits angry by criticizing the Defund the police slogan employed by many activists after Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd in cold blood.
“You lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” Obama told Peter Hamby, who hosts Good Luck America, a Snapchat political show. “The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with?”
Obama is right: Democrats would have done better in House and Senate races if activists had come up with a better slogan, one that didn't require a long drawn-out explanation.
The problem with Defund the police is not that it's a snappy slogan, it's a totally stupid slogan. It doesn't really get at the root of the problem, which is arrogant racists who, under color of authority, assault and murder the citizens paying their salaries.
Clearly, someone has to respond when burglars, rapists, muggers, and wife-beaters commit crimes. These responders are called police. These responders have to be paid.
When you say Defund the police you immediately have to explain that you don't mean that police departments will get zero dollars, you really mean that their various functions should be redistributed among other departments, there should be better citizen oversight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Defund the police as a slogan is therefore stupid, self-contradictory, meaningless and totally impractical from the get-go.
A good slogan is clear, concise and requires no explanation. A good slogan is one that no reasonable person can disagree with. Make America great again doesn't require explanation, and it's not all that disagreeable except through its connection to that loser Trump.
Black lives matter requires no explanation. Some disagree with it, thinking that it somehow elevates Blacks above others, and respond angrily with, All lives matter.
No justice, no peace, a slogan from an earlier era, is viewed by some as threatening, but it's completely in line with American traditions like the Boston Tea Party, and echoes the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
A better slogan would address the real problem with policing, which is police who aren't held accountable when they abuse their authority. Something along the lines of Fire bad cops, or the rhyming variant No justice, no peace, no racist police.
There's a lot of talk about dismantling the "systemic racism" of police departments, but these days there aren't many laws on the books that explicitly target Blacks, like the old segregation laws.
Th real problem is that laws are selectively enforced by officers who act with impunity, protected by corrupt police unions. They target Black and Hispanic kids for smoking weed, while letting white kids off the hook. They patrol "high crime areas" (i.e., Black neighborhoods), stopping Blacks for loitering, vagrancy, and minor traffic infractions like rolling stops, improper lane changes and and burnt-out taillights, while ignoring the same violations in white neighborhoods.
Take a couple of recent examples: Breanna Taylor, a Black woman, died when cops broke into her apartment and killed her. Meanwhile, the Nashville bomber's girlfriend told police he was making bombs in his RV, and when cops politely knocked on his door, they just gave up he didn't answer. Is there any doubt that they would have crashed in right then and there had he been Black or Muslim?
Cities pay millions upon millions of dollars each year to citizens whose rights have been violated by bad cops. And these bad cops stay on the job because the police department can't fire them: they have numerous civil service protections and union contracts that tie the hands of city officials.
All too frequently police unions are the problem, rather than police departments. One example is the Police Benevolent Association (PBA) in Englewood, NJ. It kicked out several Black cops after they supported the police chief who cracked down on racist cops who sleep on the job.
The president of the Minneapolis police union, Bob Kroll, illustrates how corrupt some police unions are:
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing by now-former Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officer Derek Chauvin, few have been inclined to defend Chauvin or his colleagues who stood by and watched as he suffocated Floyd to death. Few, that is, except Bob Kroll.
In a letter to membership, Kroll — the president of the MPD’s police union — referred to protesters outraged by police brutality as a “terrorist movement” and defended the officers who killed Floyd and were subsequently fired, arguing they were “terminated without due process” and lamenting, “What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.” (Floyd had a criminal record, but mostly for nonviolent drug and theft charges.)
In a letter to membership, Kroll — the president of the MPD’s police union — referred to protesters outraged by police brutality as a “terrorist movement” and defended the officers who killed Floyd and were subsequently fired, arguing they were “terminated without due process” and lamenting, “What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.” (Floyd had a criminal record, but mostly for nonviolent drug and theft charges.)
Hey, Bob: it was actually George Floyd who was terminated without due process.
Scott Walker destroyed the public sector unions in Wisconsin, but not police unions. That's because Republicans, who constantly do everything they can to undercut the power of the working man by dismantling unions, have made an unholy alliance with the police.
Republicans depend on the police to enforce the racial hierarchy -- that's the real "order" Republicans are referring to when they say "law and order."
So, to all you sloganeers out there: come up with a snappy way to say Eliminate Corrupt Police Unions!
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