James Clyburn: ‘defund the police’ slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow What it is about varies from person to person, and often ranges into complete fantasy land. Democrats shouldn't be trying to explain what it is about, they should have taken a more unified stand, focusing on their platform - which does not involve defunding the police.

@QuixoticSoul So the solution is just to pretend the biggest social unrest in decades is not a thing? That seems more politically suicidal. And it is the GOP who hijacked the narrative equating defunding with outright abolition. The US government has been defunding education for years and it still exists.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow The solution is to focus on police reform without embracing the radicals. Quite possibly, that means increasing police funding.

@QuixoticSoul There is also the fact they probably (correctly) felt they had to mitigate the optics of having a ticket with the guy who literally created mass incarceration and the woman who made a career out of locking up pot smokers and the parents of kids who cut class.

@QuixoticSoul Sorry but they have been trying that approach for 200 years and it has quite obviously failed.

And defunding a police department's ability to finance a small army is not exactly radical outside the US.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow We have a much better and more professional police force than we did 200 years ago. Cops get the tacticool surplus military stuff for free, for the most part - that's a separate issue.

@QuixoticSoul That is a nice sentiment but as an outside observer I see no evidence to suggest that. In May of this year alone US police killed more people then UK police did in the last 100 years. That is a serious problem.

And I would argue they are not separate issues in the sense that it is pretty much proven that if you go looking for a war you will find one. Swat teams used to be a last resort specialist unit. Now Cheech and Chong get SWATted.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow It's a separate issue because defunding the police doesn't cut off the military pipeline, they get those things for free.

And yes, we have the worst police of any developed nation - which is actually still a huge step up from what you find in most of the world. That will not improve if we defund it.

@QuixoticSoul I think you are missing one key piece on that. The initial purchase price might be free, but the operating costs sure as hell are not. That matters.

@QuixoticSoul If you take away the operating budget for things like MRAPs and other cool toys it suddenly becomes like the scam of winning a "free" mansion and still being on the hook for hundreds of thousands in property tax.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Easier to just take away the MRAPs and then the funds can be used for additional training and personnel.

@QuixoticSoul Not sure how that is easier or how that fixes anything. If training was at all a priority they already have tons of money to spend on it. Clearly it is not a priority. This is a systemic problem. Frankly I personally think the only thing that has a prayer of working is firing everyone and starting from scratch. I mean the FBI is investigating multiple PDs for direct ties to white supremacist groups. 50 officers in Buffalo quit because a cop was held responsible for assaulting a senior without provocation and putting them in the hospital. A guy was shot 7 times in the back for being a good semaritan. during Hurricane Catrina the NOPD was looting their own city. At this point reforming the police makes about as much sense as reforming the Bloods and the Crips.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Aggressively firing bad apples and training new cops - also takes more money. Increasing salaries to attract better applicants and promote living in-district? Also more money. If existing training is insufficient or incorrect, developing new training - also needs money. Any sort of comprehensive reform tends to be expensive.

@QuixoticSoul This assumes there is any incentive at all to fire bad apples. And in cases like NOPD that would have literally have been the entire police department. The FBI was investigating them before the hurricane made things even more complicated.

Second. You also have to have some incentive to want to spend money on training. They have all the money in the world to do it already but choose not to. Also the problem with police living outside of their district is largely because in many American cities to police are used to pacify the peasants and extract wealth from poor areas to fund city projects for affluent neighborhoods. And to change that requires changing the function of the police and basically getting rid of the vast majority of the force for that to be effective. Reforms also make it easier to drag your feet and not actually do anything. More "drastic" measures require actual implementation of a solution. Not abolishing the slave patrols and starting from scratch is how you end up effectively reproducing the same system 200 years later.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow We don't have the same system 200 years later - things are dramatically different and no matter what you have in place, having an effective and functional police force takes funding, and lots of it.

Everything you cite are things that need reforms, and won't improve if police is defunded.

@QuixoticSoul There are more black people in chains now then in 1860 and the police still exist largely to keep them in line. Window dressing is not real progress. Hell even most of the prisons are former plantations.