DEFUND
To mobilize the Democrats into the streets during a nationwide pandemic lockdown, the institutional Left, woke corporations, and the hysterical media embraced the cynical lie that police in America are systemically racist and murder unarmed black men routinely and without consequence. made the Trump White House look ineffective on one of the then-president’s signature issues: law and order (though he did tweet “LAW AND ORDER” in all caps many times). The Democrats eked out a win with Joe Biden, and to many it seemed the election was a referendum on COVID response and lawlessness in the streets. Just how extreme was this anti-police movement? For anyone wondering whether some of the Left actually wanted to get rid of police entirely, there was an op-ed published in June of 2020 in the New York Times with the helpful title “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.” The piece contained such memorable lines as “There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people.” Among so-called police reform activists on the Left, this delusional framing of police in America was fashionable in the second half of 2020 and mandated for anyone seeking to be “woke.”
But things have changed a lot in the past six months... We’re halfway through 2021, and Democrats are recognizing (hopefully too late) that the defund-police movement within their ranks has become an enormous political liability. One big tip-off that they are concerned is in their almost comical, Soviet-style rewriting of recent history on the subject. A perfect example comes from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who recently said in response to a question from a Fox News reporter who was probing the Biden administration’s position on defunding police: Well, first, let me just note that the president ran and won the most votes of any candidate in history on a platform of boosting funding for law enforcement after Republicans spent decades trying to cut the COPS program. Oh, really? Biden won the White House as a big advocate for increasing police funding? This would come as a shock to anyone who had paid even passing attention to politics in the U.S. over the past 12 months. Back in the world of facts and reality, here’s a reminder of the kind of statements then- candidate Joe Biden was making about law enforcement when it was politically advantageous to undermine them... During a speech on June 2, 2020, where Biden rolled out his absurd (but, sadly, effective) “America’s healing grandpa” routine, here’s what he said about police nationwide: A down payment on what is long overdue should come now. Immediately.
42
July 2021
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online