Why the Democrat's messaging is lost in translation
/A cut-and-paste text has become popular on Facebook. Here's a snippet: “Just a note for my right leaning family and friends from my left leaning self as we near voting day: They say we want to disband police departments (and that we hate the police): we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to weed out racism and unnecessary police brutality and for those who abuse their power to be held accountable.”
Here's my reply to at least the first claim: Weeding out racism, targeting unnecessary police brutality and holding those who abuse power accountable are priorities on which I think both sides can safely agree. However, they are not achieved by using broad-strokes strategies. They are sophisticated challenges, and we need to refine our thinking and approach if we want to actually make progress.
If I can speak for those with whom the original poster refers to as their “right leaning family and friends,” we agree with 99 percent of everything on that list. I’d imagine we can all agree as well that there’s different approaches to achieving these goals. Let me show why these goals you strive for (at least a few of them on that list), however, appear to be lost in translation based on the way the Right sees the Democratic messaging and actions.
The Right doesn’t say the left wants to “disband police departments” - the Democratic messaging does. When massive protesters hold signs saying “Defund the police” and “Black Lives Matter” and BLM explicitly says on its website and in videos they’re done with “police reform” and encourage their followers to ask lawmakers to “spend less” on police - it’s hard to believe you don’t want to disband the police. If Democrats don’t want to “defund the police” or if you have to explain a core slogan, then it’s at best a less-than-sufficient one and at worst, a divisive one.
If the Right believes that some on the left “hate the police” - it's because Democratic messaging sure suggests this. When Democratic media defends destruction and violence it’s hard to believe you want to support the police. (A few examples: NYTimes Hannah-Jones said: “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.” From the Nation: “attacking police stations, for example, makes rational sense.” Or CNN’s Don Lemon: “This is how this country was started… They’re fighting for what’s right.”) There is a tacit, and at times more than tacit, anti-law and order theme prevailing amongst many of the left.
If Democrats want police reform to weed out racism, unnecessary police brutality, etc. - the Right is with you. But it’s hard to believe the sincerity when in June, Senate Democrats didn’t allow amendments or discussion of Sen. Tim Scott’s police reform bill, which had a number of Democratic proposals including 1) making lynching a federal hate crime 2) reviewing US criminal justice system 3) barring chokeholds 4) collecting data on use of force by police. As Senator Scott said at the RNC - it felt like continuing the issue was more important to the Dems than finding the solution.
If Democrats want to match “punishments” with “crimes” - the Right is with you. But it’s hard to believe the sincerity when progress is ignored. There have been thousands of reduced sentences and released prisoners as a result of the First Step Act (FSA), which was signed into law in 2018, and referred to by The New Yorker as “one of the most significant criminal-justice-reform bills in decades.” This is landmark legislation, and it came from the Right.
This week, CNN's Don Lemon started condemning the riots because it's hurting Democrats in the polls, and because "they’re rioters, not protesters. They’re criminals," he said. This is good. More of this please. But should we condemn riots because it’s the wrong thing to do, or simply because it’s hurting votes?
We can all do better. As Jacob Blake’s mother said so well: “America is great when we behave greatly.”
Please comment at @bambi100 on Twitter.