Why is the left so bad at messaging? Case in point, the calls to Defund the Police. Any idiot who gave that phrase even one second of thought would come to the obvious conclusion that not only is it a stupid idea on the merits (defund translates to no funding, not lower funding), but would also know that it wouldn’t play well with a huge percentage of people. What’s truly irritating is that the people who are proposing that we “defund the police” are, for the most part, not actually proposing that we “defund the police”, but that we look more carefully at police budgets and transfer some of the excess to other uses, like schools. Already, the Republicans are seizing on the phrase, since it’s so easy to misrepresent the intent of those that are using it. My wife just got polled by Republican oriented Rasmussen, and they are push polling with the phrase. Give the Republicans credit for the one thing they’re able to do: use language to their advantage. They would never have floated a phrase like that.
So, that’s the rant. Here’s the modest proposal. How about something that sends a message that would make it a bit harder for Republicans to mine votes from it. Something like: Rethink the police. I’m not proud. If someone comes up with something better, I’m all for it. Nothing could be worse than the phrase we’re stuck with at the moment.