You know you have lost the plot as a left-wing activist when even Al Sharpton thinks you have gone too far.
The MSNBC host and anti-Semitic agitator denounced the “defund the police” movement Tuesday. He characterized it as a childish fantasy of wealthy, out-of-touch coastal elites.
“To take all policing off [the table] is something that I think a latte liberal may go for as they sit around the Hamptons discussing this as some academic problem,” Sharpton complained during an appearance on Morning Joe. “But people living on the ground need proper policing, yes, we need more resources in different areas like mental health.”
“I’ve said,” he added, “we need to reimagine how we do policing. But when you are talking about the fact … we are in the areas where that is inundated with guns, that has this serious problems of our — of people being given guns that can’t even get a summer program.”
Sharpton sounds as if he moonlights as a right-wing talk radio host.
Pro-police? Check. A reference to wealthy coastal enclaves? Check. “Latte” and “academic” as pejoratives? Check. Welcome to the EIB Network, Brother Sharpton:
The “defund the police” movement has yet to find a coherent message. Its proponents cannot decide if they want to reform law enforcement or abolish it altogether.
Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, for example, has gone so far as to call for the disbanding of the Minneapolis Police Department. Activist Mariame Kaba authored an article for the New York Times titled “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.” There are others in the press who support literal “defunding” but in a much subtler way. They obscure their goals with mealy-mouthed double-speak, including the claim that “defund” actually means “redirecting funds from police departments to other parts of society that help people like housing, education, and communities.” That is still “defunding,” by the way.
But then, there are people such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. They support a (by comparison) moderate, reform-based approach.
As for Sharpton, he does not want any part of the “defund” silliness. Perhaps he has grown wiser with age. Perhaps he realizes that abolishing local peacekeeping services is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps Sharpton realizes the “defund” movement is electoral poison for the Democratic Party.
At any rate, his opposition suggests something larger of the move to “defund” the police. It suggests it is as radical and insane as it sounds. Sharpton helped incite the 1991 Crown Heights race riots. If he says a left-wing, “racial justice” movement has gone off the deep end, he would know better than anyone else.
