As reported by Axios, Democrats have carried out this 180-degree reversal primarily for the purpose of responding to Republican attacks over the far-left anti-police movement. Both during and immediately after the race riots of 2020, many activists began calling for defunding all police. Many prominent Democrats on the campaign trail voiced their support for such a policy as they continued pandering to the black nationalist movement Black Lives Matter.
Subsequently, the political backlash against Democrats in 2020 and 2021 have led to introspection from party leaders, as well as heavy infighting between progressives and more moderate members of the party. Democrats running for office in swing states have been caught in the crosshairs of the rhetorical battle over police funding, and it is candidates in these competitive locations who have been reversing themselves the most.
In Ohio, U.S. Senate nominee Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) ran an ad which claims that “Tim Ryan knows defunding the police is ridiculous,” while also baselessly accusing his Republican opponent, author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance, of being the one who opposes police.
In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D-Ga.) released an ad featuring a single former deputy who claims, with no evidence, that Governor Brian Kemp’s (R-Ga.) new concealed carry law “makes us less safe,” and that the law itself is “dangerous.” And in Florida, Congresswoman Val Demings (D-Fla.), who is running for the U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), highlights her past experience as a police officer to claim that she is not anti-police.
“When he says I want to defund the police — I am the police!” Demings has said on the campaign trail. “Does that make any sense? I mean, come on.”
The tide began turning on the “defund the police” movement earlier this year, when Joe Biden said during his State of the Union address that the answer to rising crime was “not to defund the police,” but to “fund them.” The movement has consistently been losing momentum and has proven to be widely unpopular with the American people.
