The poll results are in.
The award for the dumbest, most incoherent slogan in American political history goes to… “Defund the Police.”
Congratulations Democrats!
Do you remember Defund the Police? Of course you do. How could you possibly forget?
It’s on par with John Kerry’s infamous “I voted in favor before I voted against,” which is due in no small part to driving the nail in the coffin of his most memorable 2004 presidential bid.
To be honest, when I first heard “Defund the Police” I didn’t understand what it meant. But that’s because nobody really did.
Some said it means “rethinking the police,” while others said yes, it literally means we don’t want the police anymore.
It was a kind of political astrology.
People read what they want, and the Democrats have always been half smart when debating the issue.
Even after a veto-proof majority on the Minneapolis City Council pledged to defund and disband the police department in June 2020, Democrats refused to take a clear position.
I interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on the air at my former place of work immediately after that City Council vote, and she did not condemn it.
I asked her in part, “Do you support the defunding and removal of police from American communities?”
In response, as we’ve come to expect from her, she unleashed an almost impenetrable jumble of words.
“We have confused the idea of putting more police on the streets to create safety, instead of understanding that in order to create safe and healthy communities, you need to put more resources into those communities’ public education systems, into affordable housing and into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses, access to health care no matter how much money people have… You know in many cities in America almost a third of their budget goes to the police so we need to have this conversation. What do we do? What about the money for social services, what about the money for vocational training?’
Harris wasn’t the only one dodging the question. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pivoted on the issue and offered vague answers.
In fact, the Progressives and The Squad were the only Democrats directly and firmly committed to defunding the police force.
A poll by NBC News measured 15 different problems or qualities of candidates ahead of the November election. The poll was conducted March 18-22 among 790 registered voters with an overall margin of error of +/- 3.49 percentage points.
“Failing the police is failing the police,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said in a June 2020 statement. “It doesn’t mean budget tricks or fun math. It doesn’t mean moving school police officers out of the NYPD budget and into the Department of Education budget to keep the exact same police officers in the schools.’
None of this madness made any sense to me.
What happens when a crime is committed? When someone is robbed or murdered or raped?
At the time, I was surrounded by mostly progressive extremists and media leftists, and I felt like the child in the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who tells everyone that the ruler is actually naked.
I said on the air that too much is explained and there is no clarity, and in politics you lose if you explain.
Now, 8 months before midterms, I don’t want to say I told you, but I did tell you. And there is data to back that up.
An NBC News poll in March measured 15 different candidate problems or qualities ahead of the November election and guess what it found.
The main issue that made voters more likely to support a candidate – police funding.
The main issue that made voters less likely to support a candidate — that’s right — the defunding of the police.
In fact, police funding was more popular than the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Defunding the police was more unpopular than saying Trump won the 2020 election.
Let that sink in for a moment because it’s ridiculous.
The only Democrats who campaigned directly and decisively to disempower the police were the Progressives and The Squad. (Above) The Minneapolis City Council appears at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis on June 7, 2020 after pledged to dismantle the city’s police department in the wake of the killing of George Floyd
Police funding is more popular than President Biden’s only notable legislative achievement (the infrastructure bill), and police defunding is less popular than Democrats’ strongest line of attack against the GOP (the stolen election myth).
How could the Democrats get it so wrong?
Part of that was that they wanted to capitalize on the public anger that exploded after the horrific murder of George Floyd. But they chose the most unconventional way to do it.
This backfired on everyone, especially communities suffering from rising crime rates. They’re the ones who want more cops around, not fewer.
Defunding the police might have been a popular idea in Ivy League political science classes, on MSNBC panels, and on the set (and backstage) of The View, but not in the real world.
Now the chickens have come home to sleep.
I ask voters not to forget who sold this garbage and who is responsible for the increase in crime in American cities.
Don’t forget which members of which party opposed the law enforcement officers who risked their lives every day for very little money. Because it’s not the tribe I belong to.
Defunding the police has always been a terrible idea, pushed by progressive extremists coddled by the flimsy democratic establishment.
With the midterm elections approaching, Democrats are now working hard to change the perception that they agreed to these policies.
In his recently proposed budget, Biden called for greater new federal spending on law enforcement, including about $32 billion in new police spending.
But in Congress, a budget is just a vision. It’s not legislation. And I predict that next November the Democrats will have nothing to show for it.
That was always a gift from Republicans, and we should embrace it, not just because the policy is smart, but because this madness has made America less safe.