Mr. Tank himself, Michael Dukakis, has fired a sabot round into the Democratic police funding fight, declaring that Black Lives Matter activists are "nuts" for wanting police funding changed.
A generation ago, Michael Dukakis saw his chances of winning the presidency crushed after Republicans cast him as soft on crime.
Now he is warning his party not to make the same mistake.
The "defund the police" movement is “nuts,” Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988, told this column.
“I’m saying to myself, my God, what the hell is going on here?” Dukakis added during a 40-minute phone interview from his home in Brookline, Mass., late last week.
“On one hand, you have folks screaming and yelling about getting rid of policing, which makes no sense at all. And then on the other hand, you have some people totally misinterpreting what community policing is, just as we were really making huge progress,” he said.
The day before the interview, President Biden had laid out his plan to counter a nationwide rise in crime.
Biden’s efforts will prioritize police funding and disrupting the illicit circulation of firearms. The president is encouraging local authorities to use money from the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed in March to hire more law enforcement personnel.
Asked if he thinks Biden strikes the correct balance, Dukakis said: “I think he gets it and understands it. I’m not sure he and for that matter my party is articulating it very well.”
The issue, for Dukakis, is not about taking away or adding “gobs of new money” but about establishing trust between the police and the community.
Three huge problems here as I see it.
Number one, Dukakis should probably not get involved, no offense, but you don't get much higher on the Democratic loser scale than this guy.
Number two, look how easy it is for Dukakis to mischaracterize the argument. No wonder Democrats are getting crushed on this.
Number three, there is a non-small subsection of BLM activists that actually do want police abolished, period, rather than any reform efforts (although actual police reform would be, well, firing most police nationwide and starting over). This isn't helping either.
No, this is a fight that Democrats are bound and determined to lose, so of course President Biden is doubling the federal grant fund to hire more cops. It's a lost cause, and Democrats should wisely move on to something else, not that Republicans or the media will ever, ever let them.
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