Political Roundtable Part XXX

[dckingsfan]

From a messaging point of view - defund the police is a poor message.

Ignore this if you don't like being lectured.

People "buy" things for three reasons:
Quantitative - It saves you money.
Qualitative - A better quality of life.
Enabling – You can do something you couldn't do before.

Defund only hits on the quantitative aspect - and we know from the Trump campaign (for example) that qualitative messaging is better.

Make our police great again (for example) would have been better. And there are tons of other even better messaging that could have taken into account cost savings, better policing and the ability for our cities to move forward.

Reminder: "defund" is a technical term in bureaucratic management that most do not understand. Bringing an unfiltered bureaucratic term directly to the population was doomed to fail.

[dobrojim]

From a messaging point of view - defund the police is a poor message.

Couldn't agree more

Make our police great again (for example) would have been better. And there are tons of other even better messaging that could have taken into account cost savings, better policing and the ability for our cities to move forward.

I see a clear problem with the bolded part. The history of police in America is an ugly racist one.
The statement assumes this wasn't the case at some point. I can't think of when that point was.

I'm all in favor in a better slogan than either of these two.

[Zonkerbl]

"Make our police great again." No! Goddammit! Why aren't you listening? This is exactly my point!

any response that is basically kneejerk cop worship just makes me shake my head. You're not getting it, man.

"Harm minimization" is technically what we are trying to do. Some snappier version of that would work.

[montestewart]

"Make our police great again." No! Goddammit! Why aren't you listening? This is exactly my point!

any response that is basically kneejerk cop worship just makes me shake my head. You're not getting it, man.

"Harm minimization" is technically what we are trying to do. Some snappier version of that would work.

“First, do no harm,” is taken. How about “To protect and not clobber”?

[pancakes3]

it was called "police reform" for decades, starting in the 60's and throughout my lifetime.

also, re: police reform, there are some medium/long-form articles re: why efforts to continue police reform has stalled in the 2000's... thanks to a private company called Lexipol

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/08/lexipol-police-policy-company/

https://kstp.com/5-investigates/this-texas-based-company-makes-millions-consulting-police-across-minnesota-critics-call-it-a-powerful-roadblock-to-reform/

[dckingsfan]

...Make our police great again (for example) would have been better. And there are tons of other even better messaging that could have taken into account cost savings, better policing and the ability for our cities to move forward...

Messaging takes time and thought and should reflect what you are trying to accomplish.

My only point here is that as bad as "Make our police great again" is, it is better than "defund the police" - well, unless you are trying to intentionally torpedo the effort from the get go...

[doclinkin]

"Harm minimization" is technically what we are trying to do. Some snappier version of that would work.

Police reform had a brief moment of positive change under the title "Community Oriented Policing". I saw it happen at a local municipal level where cops were taken out of their cars and put on bikes or walking in neighborhoods and were given incentives for living in or near the communities they worked in.

It is a truism in policing that there are 2 kinds of guys attracted to the job. The white hat hero types, and bullies who just want to join the biggest gang and enjoy the authority and guns. Back when there was a purported budget surplus, I liked Clinton's idea of a national Police Corps that would pay people to go to school provided they worked as an officer in a needy community for an equivalent time afterwards. Seems to me you'd get more idealistic crusader types joining police forces, as opposed to the scared thugs that the job commonly attracts nowadays. I knew cops of the crusader type who eventually quit because of the culture of paranoia that many cops operate with behind that 'thin blue line'. Still if officers had exposure to diversity and training in critical thinking and hell, training in Law or sociology, we might see better results. Fewer citizen deaths, and less $$$ paid out in lawsuits.

But Cops don't want that. Decades ago I heard how you can fail the police entrance exam by scoring too well. By being too smart. Hierarchies are threatened by rookies asking why things are done a certain way. They simply want guys who will follow orders.

'Community Oriented Policing' may need an update as a phrase, but it means the same thing. Cops who know the people they are policing are less likely to kill them. Crisis response teams should be part of any agency that enforces public safety. And yeah, It should be illegal for a public servant to kill a citizen. It should be harder to keep your job if you kill someone, instead of the default setting being that you skate free after a paid vacation. Protect and Serve should be emphasized again.

And as for defunding, I don't know. If it costs MORE money to retrain a police force, fire the bad apples, hire better candidates, even pay them more, i don't care. Do it if it prevents citizen death. Spend money on hiring better people instead of on urban tanks and better weapons. Or on payouts for lawsuits from police malfeasance. Weed out the actual terrorists and militia types that the FBI says infest many police departments and are one of the greatest threats to public order and the proper functioning of our republic.

[dobrojim]

How about a domestic peace corp focusing on economic disaster zones
In both urban and rural areas.

I know it’s not an original idea…

Re lawsuits against police, reform efforts might get more police support
if the settlement dollars paid out reduced pensions. That would get their
attention.

[I_Like_Dirt]

From a messaging point of view - defund the police is a poor message.

Ignore this if you don't like being lectured.

People "buy" things for three reasons:
Quantitative - It saves you money.
Qualitative - A better quality of life.
Enabling – You can do something you couldn't do before.

Defund only hits on the quantitative aspect - and we know from the Trump campaign (for example) that qualitative messaging is better.

Make our police great again (for example) would have been better. And there are tons of other even better messaging that could have taken into account cost savings, better policing and the ability for our cities to move forward.

Reminder: "defund" is a technical term in bureaucratic management that most do not understand. Bringing an unfiltered bureaucratic term directly to the population was doomed to fail.

I think the messaging as you described it here is a bit of a red herring. Trump might be a decent example but it wasn't the positive messaging alone that did it - it was avoiding the issue entirely and then using doublespeak when people tried to get him to engage on the issue.

If you want to do that here, you don't actually mention the police at all. You rally behind something like "Save the children!!!" or something equally over the top that makes anyone arguing against it look foolish while at the same time quietly establishing the tacit collective understanding that the children weren't being saved before. And when questioned about it, you talk about all the amazing things you're going to do, like social workers, family supports, teaching supports, environmental fixes, etc. and avoid the police entirely while making it obvious the only place to get that kind of money is out of police budgets but when called on the issue you turn the tables and ask why anyone questioning you is against supporting children.

The problem with this approach is that the people who see just how truly ridiculous this approach is tend not to be Republicans anyway. And then you have the fact that media does play a crucial part here by pushing ridiculous slogans out there when the movement doesn't really have one yet, which is how you get stuff like "defund the police" in the first place.

You need to come out with an established positive slogan that is largely meaningless underneath. This is where Obama was a master with stuff like "yes we can" and "hope beats fear." He did sneak through the ACA but by and large he missed an opportunity to move far more stuff through at the start, making the mistake of buying what he was selling - a mistake the GOP seldom makes.

[Zonkerbl]

"Harm minimization" is technically what we are trying to do. Some snappier version of that would work.

Police reform had a brief moment of positive change under the title "Community Oriented Policing". I saw it happen at a local municipal level where cops were taken out of their cars and put on bikes or walking in neighborhoods and were given incentives for living in or near the communities they worked in.

It is a truism in policing that there are 2 kinds of guys attracted to the job. The white hat hero types, and bullies who just want to join the biggest gang and enjoy the authority and guns. Back when there was a purported budget surplus, I liked Clinton's idea of a national Police Corps that would pay people to go to school provided they worked as an officer in a needy community for an equivalent time afterwards. Seems to me you'd get more idealistic crusader types joining police forces, as opposed to the scared thugs that the job commonly attracts nowadays. I knew cops of the crusader type who eventually quit because of the culture of paranoia that many cops operate with behind that 'thin blue line'. Still if officers had exposure to diversity and training in critical thinking and hell, training in Law or sociology, we might see better results. Fewer citizen deaths, and less $$$ paid out in lawsuits.

But Cops don't want that. Decades ago I heard how you can fail the police entrance exam by scoring too well. By being too smart. Hierarchies are threatened by rookies asking why things are done a certain way. They simply want guys who will follow orders.

'Community Oriented Policing' may need an update as a phrase, but it means the same thing. Cops who know the people they are policing are less likely to kill them. Crisis response teams should be part of any agency that enforces public safety. And yeah, It should be illegal for a public servant to kill a citizen. It should be harder to keep your job if you kill someone, instead of the default setting being that you skate free after a paid vacation. Protect and Serve should be emphasized again.

And as for defunding, I don't know. If it costs MORE money to retrain a police force, fire the bad apples, hire better candidates, even pay them more, i don't care. Do it if it prevents citizen death. Spend money on hiring better people instead of on urban tanks and better weapons. Or on payouts for lawsuits from police malfeasance. Weed out the actual terrorists and militia types that the FBI says infest many police departments and are one of the greatest threats to public order and the proper functioning of our republic.

I'm a scientist. The evidence says police are just the wrong tool for the job, period. No amount of "reform" is going to eliminate the inherent impossibility of teaching a cop trained to tag and bag crime suspects to also deescalate. It's not in the job description - the desire to pacify as quickly and safely (for the cop) as possible is always going to trump whatever else you want them to do. For example, the team that responds to domestic violence must have at least one non-cop in it (ideally it should be an (unarmed) DV team with only one (armed) cop), and that takes resources, resources that the police are currently soaking up. There is no way to fix this problem that does not involve taking resources away from cops and redirecting them to tools that actually work.

It's not a question of there being bad apples. The problem is the job description. That can't be changed. I'm not saying all cops are bad. I'm saying, this is what they are trained to do. This other thing you want them to do, directly contradicts their primary training. The two can't be reconciled.

[Zonkerbl]

Read on Twitter

[closg00]

The Sussman trial was Fox News's Watergate and everything they were pinning their hopes on

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[dckingsfan]

I think the messaging as you described it here is a bit of a red herring...

I'll stop you right there... I said my messaging was bad - just not as bad as defund. And that is much better messaging that can be used.

From there - figure out if you want to focus on the quantitative, qualitative, enabling aspects of your messaging or all of them in your messaging.

Make your objectives clear. "Defund" doesn't do that except to a bureaucrat.

And defund doesn't describe the benefits (as it currently stands), so there is that...

Zonk has one part perfectly right - as it stands, no amount of "reform" is going to do the job.

The other part that is opaque to most people is what parts of the job move to these new entities. Zonk described one (how to handle domestic violence), it is painstakingly numbing to describe them all...

[Pointgod]

I think the Democratic party is 75% racist and pat themselves on the back for not being 100% racist. I stand by each of my points. I don't find anything you said at all persuasive, basically just put your fingers in your ears and yelled "lalalala" at every one of my arguments.

Personally I think it’s ludicrous to say that the party with the most black members, especially in senior leadership positions and had the first black President racist. It’s pretty obvious what a racist party looks like and it’s the Republican Party. Your argument is pretty much Democrats haven’t passed the policies I want and the reason is because of racism without actually providing compelling evidence. Biden hasn’t decriminalized marijuana because racism. Democrats haven’t codified abortion laws because racism. Democrats didn’t pass gun reform because racism. Obamacare unquestionably helped black people who were disproportionately uninsured but because it wasn’t Medicare for all it’s racism. And on and on. There’s a lot more complexity than you want to acknowledge and the fact is that I have hard time calling the party that has AOC, Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman fundamentally racist. The reason more left leaning policies haven’t passed is that congress is not overwhelmingly left leaning. Progressives have no one but themselves to blame for not getting more left leaning members of Congress elected. Where were they in the midterms during the Obama years?

You're flat out wrong that the moderate Dems, the voting bloc that controls the party, is not pro war on drugs. Biden is one of its PRINCIPAL AUTHORS. He refuses to legalize marijuana, or even consider it. That's racist man.

If congress passes a law to legalize marijuana, Biden will sign it. He can’t unilaterally legalize it through executive order. That’s simply not true.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/

The MORE Act is one of several legislative proposals to decriminalize marijuana possession that haven't reached a vote. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a bill in November that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, allowing states more latitude to set their own laws. Mace's bill had four co-sponsors as of early January.

And Democrats ABSOLUTELY WORSHIP COPS. Pay attention! If "defund the cops" is such a bad *slogan,* why are all the moderate dem proposals only about cop *reform,* which absolutely addresses exactly none of the problem? Why are there no reform options being proposed by the Dems that actually defund the cops and reallocate those funds where they are most needed?

Come on man, you're better than this. The problem in the Democratic party is deep seated racism that prevents them from embracing the policies that will help encourage their core voting blocs to turn out and vote. We absolutely need to start with defunding the cops. That needs to be our four decades long project, just like abortion was for the GOP.

If your argument that the Democrats worship cops is that they won’t throw their support behind the Defund the Police slogan, then not sure I buy that argument. What’s your interpretation of defunding the police? It’s just not a popular slogan, even if the underlying policies behind it are.

First off most people have a negative reaction to hearing Defund the Police. And that includes black people the backbone of the Democratic Party.

That survey, commissioned by the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, presented a list of eight issues and asked residents which was the biggest one facing the city. White respondents were slightly more likely to choose police reform than public safety. But Black respondents named public safety as their top concern, and they ranked police reform last. White residents opposed defunding the police, but Black residents rejected it even more decisively.

Across the political spectrum, there’s a consensus for requiring officers to wear body cameras, mandating independent investigations of officer-involved shootings, and creating a national registry of police misconduct records. By 2 to 1, the public supports banning chokeholds and no-knock search warrants. In a survey of more than 1,800 Americans, conducted in April and May by the Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 60 percent of respondents said police supervisors should be penalized for racially biased conduct by their officers; only 15 percent disagreed.

One of the worst things to propose, politically, is defunding the police. Americans reject that idea by about 40 percentage points. Democrats and people of color are against it. The only idea that’s less popular is abolishing the police, which, in an Economist-YouGov poll taken this month, lost by 45 points among Black Americans, by 64 points among Democrats, and by 76 points among all voters.

The problem with threatening to defund police is that the public likes police. Cops have a strong favorable rating, even among liberals. Activists who think police departments are overfunded—or that some of their money would be better spent elsewhere—would be wise to choose less confrontational language, such as advocating for “redirecting” money to mental health or other community services. In polls, that language earns the support of around 35 percent to 40 percent of Americans, but half of the public is still against it. Softening the language again, by promising to shift the money “gradually,” gets a little more support but still doesn’t reach 50 percent.

The lesson for activists and politicians is clear: Don’t talk about defunding police. Instead, talk about investing in alternatives, and make those alternatives work. Then we can have a conversation about how many cops we need to handle the work that remains. And in the meantime, rather than getting bogged down in a debate over defunding, we can talk about how to make law enforcement work better.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/10/police-reform-polls-white-black-crime.html

This is the challenge with purity tests in politics. If given the choice between:
1. Talking about reinvesting in communities, police accountability and keeping police away from non emergency issues or
2. Just yelling defund the police

Progressives will choose option 2 even if it provides zero net benefit. It’s not racist that the Democratic Party hasn’t made defunding the police a central message, it would be an absolutely **** stupid thing to do. This is only a good idea with people that are too deep into Twitter.

I stand by what I say. That's what's so ridiculous about it - the party with the most black voters endorses policies that are 75% racist. Why?

Blind cop worship is blind cop worship and it is fundamentally racist. I stand by that statement.

The fact that the phrase "defund the cops" is unpopular while all the underlying policies are popular just reinforces my assertion. Thank you. There's nothing wrong with the words "defund the cops" except that it implies less than 100% cop worship.

And hey, if the Biden administration were in fact pursuing "reinvesting in communities, police accountability and keeping police away from non emergency issues" I would shut the hell up. The reason I feel the need to scream "DEFUND THE COPS" over and over at the top of my lungs is the Dem party is *NOT DOING IT.*

This is just a poll, it's not what the Dems are doing. It shows that these policies, if the Dems had the cojones to pursue them, would be popular. Why don't they? Present me proof that they are and I'll gladly - GLADLY - eat crow. Hopefully some state level dems are doing it, but is Biden? I don't expect much from Biden but at least he could talk about it. Moving the overton window is important. Words are important, if they make deeds possible. The GOP did it, it can be done.

I mean we’ve gone back and forth on the defund the police phrasing, but it sounds like you’re seriously arguing that if Democrats made defund the police their national platform, they’d do better national, statewide and local races? That’s a bold claim and I’d love to see some supporting evidence to back it up.

The fact that the policies within defund the police are popular but the messaging is not is the whole point of not using that specific messaging. If you have a policy that has roughly half of people support but you called the policy a **** sandwich, then people aren’t going to support your policy because nobody is signing up for a **** sandwich.

Even the majority of black people don’t want to defund or abolish the police. I don’t believe they worship cops, but they do worry about crime and want cops to stop harassing, abusing and killing them. I’ve even linked the poll. This is one poll but there is a trend that defunding the police as a messaging is not popular except amongst activists who represent don’t represent the general views of Democrats, never mind activists.

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-03/usat-ipsos_racial_injustice_topline_030421.pdf

Biden has signed executive orders at the Federal level to reform police. It’s not everything everyone wants but it’s what he can do within his power and it has some good policies.

https://thehill.com/news/administration/3501810-biden-signs-executive-order-on-policing-reform/

The executive order signed Wednesday establishes a national database of officers who have been fired for misconduct and requires federal agencies to update their policies on use of force.

The database of disciplinary records will apply to federal officers and state and local jurisdictions that partner with the federal government on joint task forces. It will cover more than 100,000 officers in total, senior administration officials said.

The order will ban federal officers from using chokeholds unless deadly force is authorized, and it will restrict the transfer and purchase of military equipment by local police departments.

The measure will also limit the circumstances under which federal law enforcement can use no-knock warrants, and it will stipulate that certain federal grants for state and local police departments will be contingent on having proper accreditations in place.

How many times have members of the squad tweeted about this? How many people in congress are amplifying this on social media and using the mid terms as a way to go further than Biden’s executive order? The whole stupidity about members of congress adopting the defund the police messaging is that it’s something that Congress doesn’t have the power to do. It can be done at the local and state levels, congress can’t unilaterally control local budgets and if they tried the Supreme Court would quickly strike it down. So they’re essentially arguing a poor message they don’t have full control of.

And there were genuine attempts at police reform legislation made by Democrats in the Senate and Tim Scott lied and blew up the negotiations. Here are the families of people killed by police calling out Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham specifically saying those two gaping **** lied to them.

Watch on YouTube

The fact that more hasn’t been done is a function of the Republican Party that traffics in racism and actual cop worship and the fact that the Democrats don’t have more numbers in the House and the Senate and don’t have a cohesive message or plan to change that.

[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

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64% of Republicans have been smoking bath salts.

[Pointgod]

When talking about the messaging around defund the police I don’t know the exact answer on what the messaging should be but people want police accountability, everyone hates corruption and a message centred around racial Justice is received positively. If you want to soften it, you can make a message around racial healing.

Messaging around police accountability and getting rid of bad cops allows those in purple and red districts to run with that message, even emphasize police support to reform and get rid of “bad apples”. Those in more left leaning districts and districts with large black populations you can run on racial justice and/or accountability. The key thing is that Democrats need some type of national message that isn’t watered down nonsense that comes off as pro police, but isn’t the complete anchor that’s connected to defund the police.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[dobrojim]

The Durham investigation....oh my. Biggest scandal since Watergate. No Actually
bigger than Watergate according to Golfy McBonespurs. All those GOP pols and voters
have forgotten or will soon conveniently forget the claims they made.
Remembering them creates too much cognitive dissonance.

Jury out long enough to make sure they got their free lunch.

Meanwhile MTG continues with the cra-cra. And wins her primary in a landslide.

[Zonkerbl]

I mean we’ve gone back and forth on the defund the police phrasing, but it sounds like you’re seriously arguing that if Democrats made defund the police their national platform, they’d do better national, statewide and local races? That’s a bold claim and I’d love to see some supporting evidence to back it up.

The fact that the policies within defund the police are popular but the messaging is not is the whole point of not using that specific messaging. If you have a policy that has roughly half of people support but you called the policy a **** sandwich, then people aren’t going to support your policy because nobody is signing up for a **** sandwich.

Even the majority of black people don’t want to defund or abolish the police. I don’t believe they worship cops, but they do worry about crime and want cops to stop harassing, abusing and killing them. I’ve even linked the poll. This is one poll but there is a trend that defunding the police as a messaging is not popular except amongst activists who represent don’t represent the general views of Democrats, never mind activists.

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-03/usat-ipsos_racial_injustice_topline_030421.pdf

Biden has signed executive orders at the Federal level to reform police. It’s not everything everyone wants but it’s what he can do within his power and it has some good policies.

https://thehill.com/news/administration/3501810-biden-signs-executive-order-on-policing-reform/

The executive order signed Wednesday establishes a national database of officers who have been fired for misconduct and requires federal agencies to update their policies on use of force.

The database of disciplinary records will apply to federal officers and state and local jurisdictions that partner with the federal government on joint task forces. It will cover more than 100,000 officers in total, senior administration officials said.

The order will ban federal officers from using chokeholds unless deadly force is authorized, and it will restrict the transfer and purchase of military equipment by local police departments.

The measure will also limit the circumstances under which federal law enforcement can use no-knock warrants, and it will stipulate that certain federal grants for state and local police departments will be contingent on having proper accreditations in place.

How many times have members of the squad tweeted about this? How many people in congress are amplifying this on social media and using the mid terms as a way to go further than Biden’s executive order? The whole stupidity about members of congress adopting the defund the police messaging is that it’s something that Congress doesn’t have the power to do. It can be done at the local and state levels, congress can’t unilaterally control local budgets and if they tried the Supreme Court would quickly strike it down. So they’re essentially arguing a poor message they don’t have full control of.

And there were genuine attempts at police reform legislation made by Democrats in the Senate and Tim Scott lied and blew up the negotiations. Here are the families of people killed by police calling out Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham specifically saying those two gaping **** lied to them.

Watch on YouTube

The fact that more hasn’t been done is a function of the Republican Party that traffics in racism and actual cop worship and the fact that the Democrats don’t have more numbers in the House and the Senate and don’t have a cohesive message or plan to change that.

I'm not going to stop saying "defund the police" until the dems agree to policies that actually defund the police. I won't agree to a set of "police reforms," ever, because training cops to do something that contradicts their fundamental training is useless. Cops are being asked to do things they are not, and cannot be, trained to do. Replace them with people who are.

Once I see evidence that the message has actually sunk in and the Dems are committed to allocating resources away from the police in favor of other service providers who will reduce harm more effectively, then we can talk about what we are going to call it. I'm in favor of having this conversation in good faith with people who agree with me on the changes that will effectively reduce harm. As long as the "defunding the police is a bad slogan" conversation is just a bad faith way to not do the things that are necessary, I'm not interested.

The squad are not retweeting "yay! headlocks are banned!" because that is not the change they are asking for. And until everyone understands that, this conversation is just going to go around in circles.

You're also betraying the fundamental weakness of the Dem party, they are not interested in state and local races. OF COURSE this is a local election problem. But Biden is not powerless. He is the most powerful Dem in the country right now. He is their mouthpiece. He can go on a whirlwind tour around the country talking to state and county officials to get them all on the same page. Get everybody to agree that you can't train cops to deescalate and there is no way this problem can be solved simply by trying to train a horse to moo like a cow. It's just not going to happen. We know what the solution is, if we can just get everyone to understand the problem. Just replace some of the horses with cows.