Defund the police was an inherently absurd idea. It especially bothers me that proponents gave no reasonable explanation for what happens next after defunding[1

Defund the police was an inherently absurd idea. It especially bothers me that proponents gave no reasonable explanation for what happens next after defunding[1] and many seemed to have no appetite for reform. Portland was kind of a poster child for this. Just look at how things have changed after their budget slash. - Police staffing levels are at critical levels [2] - Violent crime has shot way up in 2021 (along with the rest of the country) [3] - Things got so bad so quickly that in just a year millions of dollars were added back to the budget [4] - Things have continued to get worse relative to the rest of the country (which has seen crime drop back down) [5] When someone believes that there's semen in a beer, or they go to church, or they reply 'thank you for your service' to someone on the internet, that doesn't have real consequences for people. It might get spoken about in the media sometimes, but it's more just a side-show. When a stupid slogan ruined the best chance America had for wide police reform in decades, that does have consequences. Even more now, nobody (who should be a cop) in Portland wants to be a cop. Lower class communities that need more patrols don't have them. People don't feel safe in their houses. Who do you think took the brunt of this: those who chanted the slogan, or those in the huge minority ethnic groups in East Portland? And the most critical part about this: defund the police was treated with some amount of legitimacy by the media because it was their in group saying it. It should have been treated as the fringe belief it really was. Imagine if that airtime was used to campaign for reform. The real frustration of it all is that it was a zeitgeist that could have been an opportunity for real reform, and really making people want to be cops. Instead the moment was pissed away by a dumb slogan, rather than constructive debate. [1] Besides at best a hand-wavy 'community policing', which conjures up memories of that one Simpsons episode. [2] https://manhattan.institute/article/portlands-police-staffing-crisis https://manhattan.institute/article/portlands-police-staffin... [3] https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/figure-2-Shootings-in-Portland-January-2019-June-2023.png https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/fi... [4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-among-u-s-cities-adding-funds-to-police-departments https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-among-u-s-citie... [5] https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2023/10/30/oregon-crime-data-statistics-violent-police-shortage https://www.axios.com/local/portland/2023/10/30/oregon-crime...