Biden: "GOP used 'defund the police' to 'beat the living hell' out of Democrats.

[Zoidberg]

In leaked recording, Biden says GOP used 'defund the police' to 'beat the living hell' out of Democrats

The president-elect told civil rights leaders he wants to move ahead on police reform — but cautiously.

www.nbcnews.com

It was and still is an absolutely idiotic slogan that hurt the Dems and helped the GOP.

Many voted against Trump but then voted Republican, which explains why -while Trump lost- Republicans actually did very well and are now in a position where if Georgia doesn't work well for the Dems, they will be in a position to sabotage Biden for two years.

 

[SuperMatt]

Sorry, did the Democrats lose the election? Pretty sure they beat the Republicans. And how is it Republicans “did well” by losing the House again? And it looks like they might lose their majority in the Senate too. I wish I could be graded on whatever curve some are grading them by.

Suddenly, losing by less than expected is a win? “Beating the spread” in sports is a thing for gamblers, but the actual winner of the game isn’t affected by those projections. Sorry Joe, the BLM slogans seem to have energized turnout among minorities more than it motivated Republicans to react to it. If Joe is too conciliatory towards the Republicans, he will end up at war with his own party instead.

 

[Alli]

Sorry, did the Democrats lose the election? Pretty sure they beat the Republicans. And how is it Republicans “did well” by losing the House again? And it looks like they might lose their majority in the Senate too. I wish I could be graded on whatever curve some are grading them by.

Suddenly, losing by less than expected is a win? “Beating the spread” in sports is a thing for gamblers, but the actual winner of the game isn’t affected by those projections. Sorry Joe, the BLM slogans seem to have energized turnout among minorities more than it motivated Republicans to react to it. If Joe is too conciliatory towards the Republicans, he will end up at war with his own party instead.

No Politician Left Behind.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Sorry, did the Democrats lose the election? Pretty sure they beat the Republicans. And how is it Republicans “did well” by losing the House again? And it looks like they might lose their majority in the Senate too. I wish I could be graded on whatever curve some are grading them by.

Suddenly, losing by less than expected is a win? “Beating the spread” in sports is a thing for gamblers, but the actual winner of the game isn’t affected by those projections. Sorry Joe, the BLM slogans seem to have energized turnout among minorities more than it motivated Republicans to react to it. If Joe is too conciliatory towards the Republicans, he will end up at war with his own party instead.

No, of course, the Democrats won the election and still hold the House.

However, I do think that the unfortunate slogan, or soundbite, "defund the police" (which some were persuaded really meant 'abolish the police') was not the brightest - or best - slogan that could have been used in the circumstances.

 

[Renzatic]

Sorry, did the Democrats lose the election?

They fell considerably shorter than what they were projected to achieve during this election, having lost a handful of seats in the House, and only have a slim hope for a tied Senate at best, when they had a good chance of eeking out a small majority.

"Defund the police" didn't cause them to lose the election, but it sure as hell didn't do them any favors.

 

[lizkat]

No, of course, the Democrats won the election and still hold the House.

However, I do think that the unfortunate slogan, or soundbite, "defund the police" (which some were persuaded really meant 'abolish the police') was not the brightest - or best - slogan that could have been used in the circumstances.

Yes, that slogan fit on shirts or posters pretty well but hasn't aged well. We need social workers and mental health counselors riding shotgun instead of having round after round of money headed to upgrading SWAT teams' hardware. There's always going to be more drug cartel money out there to ante up in the bad guys' weapons race, so makes more sense to focus on whittling down the customer base... and not by blowing them away in mistaken raids or just plain trigger-happy overreaction to street scenes the cops themselves stir up by bringing paramilitary force to a playground beef.

They fell considerably shorter than what they were projected to achieve during this election, having lost a handful of seats in the House, and only have a slim hope for a tied Senate at best, when they had a good chance of eeking out a small majority.
"Defund the police" didn't cause them to lose the election, but it sure as hell didn't do them any favors.

Right. That was bound to end up sounding a whole lot like "We are soft on crime" and the Rs have decades of practice turning far less obvious pro-community platform planks into that message for their own base.

 

[Zoidberg]

Sorry, did the Democrats lose the election? Pretty sure they beat the Republicans. And how is it Republicans “did well” by losing the House again? And it looks like they might lose their majority in the Senate too. I wish I could be graded on whatever curve some are grading them by.

Suddenly, losing by less than expected is a win? “Beating the spread” in sports is a thing for gamblers, but the actual winner of the game isn’t affected by those projections. Sorry Joe, the BLM slogans seem to have energized turnout among minorities more than it motivated Republicans to react to it. If Joe is too conciliatory towards the Republicans, he will end up at war with his own party instead.

Mate, the margins in a few key states were uncomfortably thin. This has been a very, very close call, closer than many are willing to admit apparently. And that’s due to the lack of strategic coordination such as the defund the police slogan.

With 300000 people dead, (might be another 80000 dead by Jan 20, and certainly half a million when this is all over) and an economy in shambles, it shouldn‘t have been close.
And yet, Trump gained 11 million votes. He’s the second most voted candidate in history.
The democrats have lost ~10 seats (albeit while retaining the majority)

Yeah, he’ll soon be gone, but what’s coming is going to be extremely ugly, and if you don’t want Ivanka Trump in the White House in 2024 (and I’m very serious) you better take things like this seriously.

 

[lizkat]

Mate, the margins in a few key states were uncomfortably thin. This has been a very, very close call, closer than many are willing to admit apparently. And that’s thanks to the lack of stategic coordination such as the defund the police slogan.

With 300000 people dead, (might be another 80000 dead by Jan 20, and certainly half a million when this is all over) and an economy in shambles, it shouldn‘t have been close.
And yet, Trump gained 11 million votes. He’s the second most voted candidate in history.
The democrats have lost ~10 seats (albeit while retaining the majority)

Yeah, he’ll soon be gone, but what’s coming is going to be extremely ugly, and if you don’t want Ivanka Trump in the White House in 2024 (and I’m very serious) you better take things like this seriously.

It's hard to untangle the various major themes of support for Trump in 2020, and I was pretty surprised at the number of House seats that went red. I do attribute that to high turnout aimed at congress critters, and mostly over covid 19 mandates from blue state governors with a bunch of purple congressional seats, usually in the less urban areas.

Certainly the DNC tried to throw money into the most vulnerable House races in blue states (CDs that had flipped blue in 2018, mostly). Biden did well statewide in such situations and even held typical margin of loss in red or purple districts, but the purple CDs offered a different story on congressional races. More people didn't like the state mandated covid shutdowns and restrictions and meant the House members to get that message: "This is about this damn governor I can't vote against right now so you're it"

I was happy my Dem congresscritter was re-elected in spite of it all. He flipped a red seat in 2018 and held on by making the rounds to every single town more than a few times, and by listening to all his constituents regardless of party. Ended up 11 points ahead of an R challenger. But there were a lot of reversed flips in 2020 and while they were not all about "defund the police", still in conservative districts that flipped blue in 2018 for whatever reason, that resonated too in the 2020 House races and didn't serve the Dems well.​

Up here we have a police reform process ongoing in the larger towns and people are generally supportive of it on both sides of the blue-red divide... especially over in Oneonta. They already did some drastically needed reform after a notorious 1992 incident of discriminatory city and campus police action v SUNY students of color in a rape allegation. They've stayed eyes-open to potential for abuse of power ever since. But residents do not like that "defund the police" slogan. The municipalities are perennially short of funds for first responders and police or sheriff's deputies in the boondocks. People hearing what they want to hear is an old saw, but it's true and it usually translates in politics to "people hear party slogans in local contexts". We hear "good luck getting a sheriff out to take your report of someone stealing six calves and a trailer."

 

[Joe]

It didn’t help. I saw a lot of ads in Texas using this against Dems. Ads showing people calling the cops for help and no one showing up because of “defund the police”

We know what it means. But the GOP knows how to play dirty and lie to get what they want. It was the perfect scare tactic for them.

 

[JayMysteri0]

I don't care if you called it the "We'll find a way for the police to kill a few less people in the future" program or the "Unicorn Defense Deployment" program . A core staple of the repub life is the belief that the police will protect YOU from THEM. If THEY behaved themselves like YOU do, the police wouldn't stop them regularly for driving a nice car, or going over 5 mph, or whatever. There is a reason you have people emulating the 'Blue Lives Matter', as if any said they didn't. There literally is NO NAME or acronym that the republicans weren't going to use to club dems over the head, and claim liberals don't have the police's back.

If Joe & Co. have such an issue with the title, here's a simple idea, THEY can rebrand it into something THEY find acceptable, and try to convince THAT base they aren't walking away from issue very important to many.

I'll be waiting to hear how that goes...

 

[SuperMatt]

Mate, the margins in a few key states were uncomfortably thin. This has been a very, very close call, closer than many are willing to admit apparently. And that’s due to the lack of stategic coordination such as the defund the police slogan.

With 300000 people dead, (might be another 80000 dead by Jan 20, and certainly half a million when this is all over) and an economy in shambles, it shouldn‘t have been close.
And yet, Trump gained 11 million votes. He’s the second most voted candidate in history.
The democrats have lost ~10 seats (albeit while retaining the majority)

Yeah, he’ll soon be gone, but what’s coming is going to be extremely ugly, and if you don’t want Ivanka Trump in the White House in 2024 (and I’m very serious) you better take things like this seriously.

Maybe I’m more glass-half-full. 7 million more votes, won a state like Georgia that‘s reliably red. Losing a couple House seats wasn’t totally unexpected considering 2018 was a huge election for the Democrats.

I don’t think a slogan like “defund the police“ is the reason Trump got 10 million more votes. It’s also a grassroots thing, not a Democratic Party initiative.

The margin of victory by Biden in the popular vote was bigger than Hillary’s. I don’t necessarily think more people support Trump this time around. I think we just had much higher voter turnout by both sides this time.

The electoral college and Senate concern me going forward. Population is consolidating more and more in urban areas, but we still give WAY too much political power to small states. If the country is ruled by a minority, the protests after the death of Floyd will look like a block party compared to what’s coming.

 

[SuperMatt]

Interesting argument about why majority SHOULD rule:

Opinion | Joe Biden Won the Most Votes. It Doesn’t Matter. (Published 2020)

Majority rule shapes our lives — except when it comes to electing the president.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Zoidberg]

I don't care if you called it the "We'll find a way for the police to kill a few less people in the future" program or the "Unicorn Defense Deployment" program . A core staple of the repub life is the belief that the police will protect YOU from THEM. If THEY behaved themselves like YOU do, the police wouldn't stop them regularly for driving a nice car, or going over 5 mph, or whatever. There is a reason you have people emulating the 'Blue Lives Matter', as if any said they didn't. There literally is NO NAME or acronym that the republicans weren't going to use to club dems over the head, and claim liberals don't have the police's back.

If Joe & Co. have such an issue with the title, here's a simple idea, THEY can rebrand it into something THEY find acceptable, and try to convince THAT base they aren't walking away from issue very important to many.

I'll be waiting to hear how that goes...

It’s about not making things unnecessarily easy for them.

About it being truly grassroots, I call bs on that. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in the coming years we learn that the choice of this slogan was orchestrated from Parscale’s living room “Defund the Police” is just too perfect (for them, that is).

 

[User.45]

Interesting argument about why majority SHOULD rule:

Opinion | Joe Biden Won the Most Votes. It Doesn’t Matter. (Published 2020)

Majority rule shapes our lives — except when it comes to electing the president.

www.nytimes.com

Finally, majority rule ensures electoral accountability. As the economist Amartya Sen put it, democracies don’t have famines. A government that doesn’t have to earn the support of a majority of its citizens, or at least a plurality, is not truly accountable to them, and has no incentive to represent their interests or provide for their needs. This opens the door to neglect, corruption and abuse of power. (Talk to the millions of Californians ignored by President Trump during wildfire season.) “If someone has to run for re-election, they have to put attention into running things well,” Mr. Amar said. “If they don’t, they will lose elections.”

 

[JayMysteri0]

It’s about not making things unnecessarily easy for them.

About it being truly grassroots, I call bs on that. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in the coming years we learn that the choice of this slogan was orchestrated from Parscale’s living room “Defund the Police” is just too perfect (for them, that is).

It's NOT about them at ALL.

There are no 'F's given about the critics. Critics in these regards go with their feelings first for the most visceral appeal to the base. Believe me, I've been thru it where more people pull connotations out of the three letters of 'BLM'. To this day I still read or hear someone go, "Why is it Black Lives Matter Only"? And there I am. "It's Black Lives Matter, you added an 'O' at the end to make BLMO for you".

Once again, we could call the movement "HELP" or Help Eliminate Lawbreaking Police and you know it would become, "Are you saying ALL police break the law"? Or "Why do you want to HELP criminals kill police?" I honestly believe that's why in some places for simplicity sake they go with Prop #fill in the blank number, to make it harder for critics to twist ANY title.

The other single greatest version of this, Obama Care Vs when some republicans realized their base was irate at their efforts to take health care away and we got the renewed popularity of the Affordable Care Act. Mind we had that before, but THEN some republicans preferred calling it "Obama Care".

Really? "Obama phones"? When it was "Bush phones" I guess it wasn't insulting enough yet. It's all in how critics want to spin something.

You coin a title to appease critics, you'd have acronyms longer than the Khmer Alphabet, and phrases that require you to start saying them at 6AM to finish by 6PM.

 

[ronntaylor]

This whining is the chief reason why Dem voters need to make sure Biden is One & Done. He's out of tune and too conciliatory towards Republicans. No matter what slogan some Dems use, the other side will run with lies. We've seen that with Black Lives Matter spawning Blue Lives Matter. We've seen it time and time again. I don't like the slogan because it's not precise. But I know that racism and misogyny will never compromise with common-sense reform. Not wasting my time in a pointless debate. We need to get done while the other side tries to demonize.

2018 was such a big Dem gain that we were bound to some of those formerly Red House seats flip back. We still control the House. We flipped states. C'mon, Georgia!?! We'll have Biden-Harris made official Monday. And despite the pessimism of so-called mainstream Dems, Warnock & Ossoff are in fine shape going into the Georgia runoffs. Now is not the time to run with our tails between our legs. We came out in historic numbers in November. Stacey Abrams already registered 70K+ new voters alone through her voter education group. There are reports that there may be 125K+ plus new registered voters since Election Day among the three voter education/advocacy groups that got Dem-leaning voters out for Election Day.

Biden needs to act as if he's President-elect.

 

[Joe]

We need a Stacey Abrams in Texas.

 

[thekev]

They fell considerably shorter than what they were projected to achieve during this election, having lost a handful of seats in the House, and only have a slim hope for a tied Senate at best, when they had a good chance of eeking out a small majority.

"Defund the police" didn't cause them to lose the election, but it sure as hell didn't do them any favors.

It didn't, although I don't particularly care. There are things such as wellness checks, which should not be dispatched to the police. If any funding is earmarked based on them taking such calls, it should be redirected. There's a lot of case law that should probably be unwound. When we see cases that should result in charges, which don't result in charges, much of that is likely due to existing case law, which shields officers from prosecution.

It's worth noting that Biden picked up that slogan himself for a very brief period of time. I regarded that as pandering, as it didn't match anything he said in prior years. Personally, I would have preferred to see someone more progressive make it out of the primaries. They may not have been able to flip some of those states though, particularly Georgia.

 

[User.45]

It didn't, although I don't particularly care. There are things such as wellness checks, which should not be dispatched to the police. If any funding is earmarked based on them taking such calls, it should be redirected. There's a lot of case law that should probably be unwound. When we see cases that should result in charges, which don't result in charges, much of that is likely due to existing case law, which shields officers from prosecution.

It's worth noting that Biden picked up that slogan himself for a very brief period of time. I regarded that as pandering, as it didn't match anything he said in prior years. Personally, I would have preferred to see someone more progressive make it out of the primaries. They may not have been able to flip some of those states though, particularly Georgia.

I wasn't very excited about Biden initially, but he managed to pick up the most important agenda items in my book: climate change; so overall I don't feel as disappointed as I was with Hillary. Overall, I don't think anybody else could have gotten better election results from the DNC this year. Defund the police would have been much more damaging Democrats ran a more progressive candidate.

 

[thekev]

Defund the police would have been much more damaging Democrats ran a more progressive candidate.

The Trump campaign and their allies kept switching between calling Biden and Harris the beginning of anarchy and a police state. It's kind of ridiculous. They weren't sure what attack ads to run, so they just used anything that might generate negative sentiment.

The "defund the police" slogan isn't that meaningful overall. Police are primarily funded and managed at the local level. At the national level, you can stop selling them surplus military equipment.

At the state level, you can write laws that undo some of the established case law, which favors officers. They should not be able to shut off body cams, and there are many many videos with inappropriate use of firearms in full view of the camera. It's not like they're pointing them somewhere out of frame. You can also centralize prosecution of these cases in a different manner so that prosecutors who are involved do not have a vested interest in maintaining good relationships. You can sanction and withhold funding on police and sheriff's departments that do not comply with legal information requests. You can stop dispatching police for things such as wellness checks.

Even if the percentage of overall calls that go bad is low, there are many incidences that appear to be avoidable, based on dash cam and body cam footage. I really don't think these departments deserve much sympathy in the presence of such things, particularly when they involve officers with disciplinary records.