House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on ABC’s This Week that the slogan “Defund the Police” is “not the position of the Democratic Party.”
“Make no mistake, community safety is our responsibility,” she said. She quoted Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) who said that “Defund the police is dead.”
Pelosi and Torres are absolutely right. But the question that should be asked is, why are you calling it now? They may not be referring to massively cutting the police budget and spreading the funding around to other social service programs as “defunding the police.” But that’s still the goal, as Squad member Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) pointed out.
Bush acknowledged her party needs to do a better job of explaining exactly what it means with its call to shift some law enforcement monies to preemptive social services.
If Democrats lose their House majority this November, Bush says she’ll blame their inability to pass crucial pieces of legislation upon which members campaigned a year ago.
“‘Defund the police’ is not the problem,” she added. “We dangled the carrot in front of people’s faces and said we can get it done and that Democrats deliver, when we haven’t totally delivered.”
“If [Republicans] take the majority, it’s just done as far as trying to get the legislation across,” Bush said.
So, like radicals on school boards claiming that CRT is not CRT because they don’t specifically refer to it as CRT, “defund the police” will not be called “defund the police” anymore. It’s likely to get a makeover before the 2022 midterms.
Related: Even As Crime Skyrockets, Ilhan Omar STILL Wants to Defund the Police
Host George Stephanopoulos noted that rising crime was a major concern of Americans these days and cited divisions within the party on law enforcement, referring to Missouri Rep. Cori Bush as someone backing the idea of defunding the police.
“That’s not the position of the Democratic Party, with all due respect to Cori Bush,” Pelosi said. “Community safety to protect and defend in every way is our oath of office.”
Citing California Rep. Karen Bass (who is running mayor for Los Angeles) and New York Mayor Eric Adams as positive examples, Pelosi said Democrats are looking to improve policing by reducing “mistreatment” of people.
In other words, always believe the criminal and never believe the cop. That has been the essence of “defund the police” since it became a rallying cry for the Democratic Party — until the present crime wave hit and Democrats beat a hasty retreat.
It’s not just believing criminals when they say they’ve been “mistreated;” it’s not arresting them in the first place that has led to a spike in violent crime. Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in cities where the “Defund the Police” infection took hold. Officers are resigning in droves, arrests are way down, and there is a sense of things being out of control among people who live in violent neighborhoods.
Now many of those mayors and politicians have realized their error and are refunding the police as fast as they can. Will it be enough? Or has the damage been irreparable?
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