With policing back in the spotlight after the shooting in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is reminding us once again: When they say they want to defund or abolish the police, they mean it.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is the latest to confirm that fact. “Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist,” she said in a tweet, “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”
Tlaib’s comments make it clear what anti-police advocates want, in case it wasn’t obvious when New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “defunding the police means defunding the police.” Or when the New York Times published an op-ed by activist Mariame Kaba titled “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.” Or when the Minneapolis City Council voted to abolish the police after pressure from activists.
You can add “disarm the police” to the slogans as well, as Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said officers don’t need to be armed during traffic stops. The Brooklyn Center City Council has voted to hand command authority over the city’s police department to Elliott.
The mayor of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, suggests officers don’t need to be armed for every traffic stop or “engaged in situations that don’t necessarily call for weapons.”
“I don’t believe that officers need to necessarily have weapons every time they’re making a traffic stop.” pic.twitter.com/cl9H5nYbil
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 13, 2021
House Democrats and President Joe Biden have tried desperately to distance themselves from the movement, claiming that nobody is talking about defunding the police. That isn’t true among their own ranks, as Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib show, but it is also clearly untrue when you look at Democrat-run cities across the country.
It wasn’t just Minneapolis that voted to strip police of funding. New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and several other cities run by Democrats slashed their police budgets. Austin, Texas, cut its police budget by one-third. Portland, Oregon, disbanded police units that investigate gun violence, only to see its mayor request emergency funding to combat the rise in gun crime. Amid a surge in homicides fueled by gang violence, Los Angeles has shrunk its “Hardcore Gang” unit.
While Democrats at the city level actually follow through on defunding the police, congressional Democrats want to make policing more difficult by mandating racial quotas in traffic stops and police interviews, which Biden supports. All the while, they complain that people are noticing just how far members of their party are going to please anti-police activists.
Democrats running America’s cities have been defunding their police departments while Democrats in Washington D.C., are more concerned with being tied to the slogan. Tlaib’s comments serve to highlight the reality of the Democratic Party: It has capitulated to anti-police activists, and it shows no sign of turning back.
