I think abolish the police is a pretty confusing line of reasoning for a lot of people because the natural way to read this is no laws, not just property laws, will be enforced and then you won't be able to stop people driving in the bike lane or molesting children.
Yeah that's the prime example of bad sloganeering. "Defund the police" will always elicit a WTF reaction without the context backing it. People already securely on the left broadly understand that it really means something like Are Prisons Obselete, where the whole point is that we need to move beyond retributive justice systems towards something that fulfills the same (legitimate) purpose without being needlessly destructive and subservient to capital. But "defund the police" doesn't say ANY of that on its own.
I always say the left has two modes of communication: confusing slogans, and overwhelming walls of text. This is one example.
I always say the left has two modes of communication: confusing slogans, and overwhelming walls of text. This is one example.
That’s because, to working class people, leftist talking points explained well are just “common sense”. You’re giving people language to describe their own material conditions, which they’re already intimately familiar with
I've kinda wondered how something like expand 911 would be. You make more services under 911 and in order to fund them, you take money away from the cops.
I think that'd be a bit easily co-opted... it's important that people get the right idea from it, but also liberals will run with something like that and just throw more money at cops. "expand 911" would be something liberals can use to do what they already want to do, "defund the police" is something they don't want to do and also can't do anything with because it'll be used as a bludgeon against them by the right. If you wanted to force their hand, the theoretically ideal message would be something that can only mean what you want it to and is clear enough to immediately make sense and sound realistically achievable.
I think abolish the police is a pretty confusing line of reasoning for a lot of people because the natural way to read this is no laws, not just property laws, will be enforced and then you won't be able to stop people driving in the bike lane or molesting children.
Yeah that's the prime example of bad sloganeering. "Defund the police" will always elicit a WTF reaction without the context backing it. People already securely on the left broadly understand that it really means something like Are Prisons Obselete, where the whole point is that we need to move beyond retributive justice systems towards something that fulfills the same (legitimate) purpose without being needlessly destructive and subservient to capital. But "defund the police" doesn't say ANY of that on its own.
I always say the left has two modes of communication: confusing slogans, and overwhelming walls of text. This is one example.
That’s because, to working class people, leftist talking points explained well are just “common sense”. You’re giving people language to describe their own material conditions, which they’re already intimately familiar with
:data-laughing: :chefs-kiss:
I've kinda wondered how something like expand 911 would be. You make more services under 911 and in order to fund them, you take money away from the cops.
:sicko-charging: :nuke:
I think that'd be a bit easily co-opted... it's important that people get the right idea from it, but also liberals will run with something like that and just throw more money at cops. "expand 911" would be something liberals can use to do what they already want to do, "defund the police" is something they don't want to do and also can't do anything with because it'll be used as a bludgeon against them by the right. If you wanted to force their hand, the theoretically ideal message would be something that can only mean what you want it to and is clear enough to immediately make sense and sound realistically achievable.