10 June 2020 — 1749 mdt
“Defund” is a gift to Trump
“Defund the Police” — a lazy, bumpersticker, battle cry that
only sometimes actually means cutting off all funding
Self-defeat awaits activists who reduce complex policy proposals to simplistic slogans. Witness “Defund the Police.” Soul satisfying for people angry at police brutality? You bet. Misleading? That, too. The different people chanting it define it differently. That generates confusion and backlash that may imperil reform.
Let’s start with the black letter meaning of "defund." According to Merriam-Webster, the word, a transitive verb meaning to "withdraw funding from," appeared first in 1948. But it wasn't used much until approximately 1980, when conservative Republican Ronald Reagan won the presidency. Thereafter the word became increasingly popular. This from Google in response to the search term "defund definition:"
Vox’s Matt Yglesias confirms that the standard definition of "defund" means eliminating funding for a program:
In congressional budget-speak, to “defund” something normally means to reduce appropriations to zero dollars, thus eliminating it.
But, Yglesias obsserves, for many protesting George Floyd’s homicide, “defund” actually means “reduce:”
A three-word slogan is not a detailed policy agenda, and not everyone using the slogan agrees on the details. The basic idea, though, is less that policing budgets should be literally zeroed out than that there should be a massive restructuring of public spending priorities.
Our primal instinct for safety first produces a belief that civilized societies need police forces, and a largely favorable opinion of law enforcement officers.
Again, Yglesias:
In Gallup’s annual polls of public confidence in institutions, “the police” rank high — below the military and small businesses — with ratings that soar above the Supreme Court, newspapers, Congress, or other entities that might check them.
Confidence in policing appears to be in gradual long-term decline, and Gallup does these polls every June, so we don’t yet know if the most recent unrest will change opinions. But historically, the police have been a potent force politically, which helps explain why police unions are politically powerful even as they take stands that tend to be at odds with the racially progressive views of the big cities where they often work.
Suburban voters may consider the constable’s occasional misbehavior an acceptable cost for civilization’s not degenerating into anarchy and civil unrest. Police attacks on Black Lives Matter activists assembling peacefully undoubtedly appalls many of these voters, but they want policing reformed, not eliminated. They associate the literal meaning of “Defund the Police” with with no rough men protecting their homes and families from looters, shooters, and firebugs.
Richard Nixon exploited that fear masterfully in his acceptance speech at the 1968 Republican National Convention. Donald Trump will do the same, with lynch mob savagery, not with Nixon’s relative subtlety, but perhaps just as effectively.
Clarity on the right, confusion on the left
“The right has always been better than its opponents at driving a clear narrative,” wrote Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson in her 9 June Letter from an American:
That discrepancy showed today, as protesters have begun to call for Americans to “defund the police,” a phrasing that already has Republican opponents talking about keeping constituents safe. What most reformers mean by that phrase reflects that, as we have defunded education, housing, mental health facilities, and so on, our towns and cities increasingly have turned the functions of those institutions over to police. Reformers want to shrink police responsibilities and decrease funding from police budgets, investing instead in the other community resources that have lost money as police departments have gained it. Most are not calling for abolishing police departments altogether. They are using “defund” in the same way Republicans have called for defunding social programs.
But those who want police reforms are fighting over the phrase as they disagree about what, exactly, it means.
“Defund the Police,” a misleading phrase born of vision clouding anger, scares the bejesus out of good, decent, God fearing and law abiding Americans. That harms the progressive agenda for taming the police and expanding social services. Unless you really want governments to stop funding their police departments, don’t say “Defund the Police ”.