For a good two years now, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media have pushed a false narrative that defunding the police is something that is supported by a majority of the American people, even as poll after poll has shown that simply isn’t true, including among those whom woke activists suggested supported the idea the most: black and Hispanic voters.
Even after some so-called “moderate Democrats” in swing districts blamed the party’s embrace of the Defund the Police movement for the double-digit seat losses House Democrats experienced in the 2020 elections, some – like members of “The Squad” – have still clung to the belief that defunding the police is a winning slogan.
Although the 2022 midterm elections are expected to be brutal for Democrats, some of their candidates in reliably blue parts of the country are trying out what they hope will be a “winning” message on police and fighting crime, singing a much different tune than what we continue to hear from the AOCs of America:
From the New York Times piece:
In Democratic strongholds like Maryland, a rise in violent crime has pushed the party’s candidates to address the issue of public safety in newly urgent terms. Even before the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, reignited the debate over gun control, day-to-day gun crimes and other acts of violence were rattling the American electorate.Long seen as a political wedge for Republicans to use against Democrats, crime is increasingly a subject of concern within the Democratic Party and the big cities that make up much of its political base.And from Baltimore and Atlanta in the East to San Francisco and Seattle in the West, the candidates and elected officials pushing the party to address crime more aggressively are largely people of color. Candidates are motivated not mainly by fear of Republican attacks, but rather by mounting outcry from the Black, Hispanic and Asian American communities bearing the brunt of a national crime wave.[…]Alarming trends have changed the political conversation. In Baltimore, the city is on track to record more than 300 homicides for the eighth straight year, along with a rise in carjackings, robberies and other serious crimes. Concerns about police misconduct in the city have not evaporated seven years after the killing of Freddie Gray in police custody ignited protests and rioting, but persistent violent crime has pushed voters’ tolerance to the breaking point.
Those “alarming trends” played a role in local elections in Democrat-run cities as early as 2021, as Democrat mayoral candidates who spoke against defunding the police in places like Buffalo and New York City won, while in cities like Minneapolis, voters rejected the woke city council’s efforts to “reinvent” the police department and turn it into a “‘public-health oriented’ Department of Public Safety.”
As further proof of how the Black Lives Matter-led effort to defund the police has been a miserable failure, a recent poll of New York City voters shows their top concern remains crime, while “racial inequality” barely ranks:
A deeper dive into the numbers shows that black and Hispanic voters overwhelmingly agree with that sentiment.
As I’ve said before, not only has the “Defund the Police” movement been a disaster for Democrats politically, but it’s also proved to be devastating and deadly in the cities where the anti-police rhetoric and actions by their respective city councils have been the strongest.
That said, the Cori Bushes and AOCs of America are still crowing loudly about the so-called “need” for funding to be pulled from police departments, which is something you can be sure Republican candidates in battleground parts of the country will be using against their opponents in the fall elections.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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