[REASON] Woke Excess Causes Minority Voters To Flee the Democratic Party

Exactly. The reason why "Cancel Culture" is what FoxNews makes the central issue of party positions is because they know how unpopular their actual governing positions really are. The producers at FoxNews aren't idiots. They know what they are propagating, and why they are propagating it.

Unfortunately Culture Wars propaganda does work to a certain extent though.

 

I'm with you but even with positive wording like Equality Act and had Trump remained and won in office, wouldn't have amounted to it getting passed. I mean Affordable Care Act, which is a pretty tame name for a bill, was converted into Obamacare that then tied to him somehow being a Kenyan Muslim that's not really from America. Remember people saying where are those long form birth certificates conspiracies that lead to what does he have to hide outrage from many conservative platforms? I agree with bad messaging, but to say that's the case all of the time is disingenuous to me. Any statement, no matter how innocuous can be spun into moral outrage.

 

Part of the problem with the slogan is that it means different things to different people. For everyone explaining "what it really means is", there was someone else with a different take on its "real meaning."

But "defund the police" was certainly, in part, about actually removing funding from police departments. Not ALL funding, but the word "defund" meant removing money from law enforcement. And I don't think that nationally that ended up being a popular idea. Republicans ran against the message. Centrist democrats like Biden came out against that idea. I don't think that most people believed that the idea, itself, was a positive. "Police reform", sure. "Hold officers accountable", yes. "Community policing", while nebulous, is something people believe in. But I don't think there was a nationwide consensus to "defund" the police, in whole or in part. In fact, many of the things people want, including better (and longer) training for officers and universal body cams, are things that cost money to implement.

 

From the day that much of the Minneapolis City Council did this and "Defund the Police" gained national attention it was problematic.


What's made it worse is that many of those Councilors had no clear plan of what that term meant or a solid plan to implement. Adding to the problem was that since then in Minneapolis and other cities there has been a sharp rise in crime.

This term was meant to get a passionate reaction and get the base activated but like so much political rhetoric was a simplistic slogan to a complicated problem that was easily hijacked.

 

That does not surprise me at all. While there wasn't a lot of data while it was all going on.... it is somewhat intuitive, especially with regards to the American culture. While it is true that African Americans and some Hispanics have had or know of negative experiences with the police, that is not the case for the vast majority of white and hispanic people, especially in the suburbs and even in close knit immigrant hispanic communities.

When this was all going on, there reached a saturation point with BLM, the rioting and then the defund the police movement. While I do believe that many white and suburban voters believe in some degree of police misconduct and profiling, and they did believe that Donald Trump was at dismissive and at worst approving of misconduct, I also believe that riots and violence scare people in a secure situation. Pointing out and protesting police misconduct is one thing, having weeks of riots and then having discussions of getting rid or the police or limiting them scared otherwise sympathetic people. People that have stable jobs and families and own property were in many cases SCARED of the rioting and chaos going into their neighborhoods.

I also firmly believe that the prison reform being discussed SCARED many "hardworking" people that were white or Hispanic. The truth is a lot of people outside the black community and the far left community do NOT want prison reform. They believe (and in some cases it is true) that their neighborhoods are safer with people locked up and do not believe in rehabilitation. They do not want drug users stealing or breaking into their homes or cars. They want them in prison. Older people (40 and younger) remember the violence of the crack epidemic and the larger amount of crime and don't want to return to that.

When you discuss change..... and that change really impacts the safety and order of people, they will not support it.

I personally believe that is why Trump did better than some projections. I also believe that the Democrats are trying to hold together a coalition that is difficult to satisfy. They really want young voter support and minority support and far left support.... they know that these groups will stay home if they are not satisfied..... these small margins matter in state wide and nation wide elections..... but it is hard to quantify sometimes how many other voters you alienate..... it isn't unique to the Democrats, the Republicans are dealing with it too with Trump as a fire brand of the party. How many moderate voters do they alienate if Q and bigots and people non political are front and center around Trump? How do they keep everyone happy ....... the party that does that in the short term wins elections.

Right now the democrats are balancing the wishes of the LGBT, social democrats and black voters.... with those of Asian and Hispanics and elite whites and young "business" people that like the open reign under Clinton and Obama ........ all of these groups are in essence competing with each other....... the poor blue collar white voters used to be in this mix, but they were pushed out largely by the white elite and the Bezos, Musk's and the Gates of the world and by the black voting groups.

 

I agree with everything but its hard when we don't have a unified message heading into an election and it was doubly hard with every presidential candidate trying to carve out a lane and differentiate themselves and some straight pandering to the progressives.

Maybe we can do that heading into the 2022 elections and I think it would go a long way to blunt any Republican talking points.

We also need to do a better job of highlighting accomplishments that which we can run on, I think Biden is doing a better job of that than Obama.

I think being obstructionist is gonna backfire big time on Republicans.

 

Also weren't conservatives around campaigning and doing rallies and going about things as normal whereas a lot of Democrat candidates chose to practice social distancing which may have significantly hurt getting the word out to combat the Venezuela and Cuban communist/socialist token talking point to certain Hispanic communities. People talk like Covid is what put Trump under, but it also significantly impacted the usual campaigning a lot of Democrats would traditionally do as well. And again, if conservative ideas were so popular, there wouldn't be so much effort to suppress voter turn out in the future. I get the messaging from these articles, but I don't find them to be a completely accurate scope of the political climate either.

 

I don't know what they were thinking especially after the riots and looting. WTF. Seriously, all my "woke" friends kept repeating it all over the place.

 

Call it Refund Social Service Programs and conservatives would still spin it with some moral outrage about being anti-law enforcement. Ya'll are buying into a talking point IMO.

 

Thanks, that sums it up nicely.

Republicans had a real democratic gov body to show as an example and then crime rising just allowed them to ratchet up the fear even more.

I had actually forgot about that.

 

It's not a talking point there is actual data to show its effect.

There is a difference of spin and then you have Minneapolis actually doing it and the subsequent rise in crime after the GF demonstrations.

 

Wait, wasn’t “defund the police” actually real? I mean, many cities (NY, Chicago, Minneapolis, etc) did just that. And from what I have read, crime is up in all places.

Reform police accountability would be a better message (make them all wear body cams at all times and subject to prosecution like citizens when they break the law and if the cam gets turned off they are guilty) but many cities (dem led cities I believe) did in fact cut police funding as a reaction and most people don’t want that. Myself included and I am very center and have been consistently disappointed with both sides for decades and my own personal experiences with police have been awful...bullied and condescended and one even planted weed on a friend in high school.

I want More police accountability but I don’t think we can say the results in some places haven’t been “defunding” because they have. If I am wrong feel free to correct me. Just stating what I think are facts.

WRT the uber-woke place we find ourselves, I do think things have progressed into troubling areas. I remember always being bothered reading Mulberry Street to my kids due to the Asian portrayals on a few pages. But should books be banned? Dunno that seems a step far to me but perhaps a label on insensitivity and a teaching moment for parents about how things used to be and how we have progressed (I actually spoke to my kids about that after reading the book years ago as it bothered me). But I do think some things need to change and are changing and that is good. Confederate monuments etc...get rid of them amongst other things. I also think we have gone way too far on “white supremacy” (the coke presentation comes to mind) but I do like that there are real strides being made on diversity and inclusion in corporate America.

I also don’t ever seem to hear from black voices on some of this stuff, as it seems to be stemming from upper class white people. Would love to hear many more black voices talking about their thoughts as upper class whites shouldn’t be speaking for them. I know how they feel about police treatment overall and It is a problem and I agree with them. Though I think that applies to poor people as well in general on police treatment.

But then things like letting transgender folks compete in girls sports is too much to me. If there are enough transgender athletes out there to make this a “thing”, then certainly there are enough people to start a third division of sports for transgender athletes? That seems totally reasonable to me and keeps things fair for female athletes as while you may identify as female, and more power to you by the way, the male body is a totally different machine.

as far as labels go, both sides have taken it to extreme levels. Most republicans are labeled as white supremecists and most democrats are labeled as socialists. While there may be small pockets of each in each party, the labels are just simply wrong and an easy way to demonize the other side.

 

It's just there's been demonstrable efforts in other places like Seattle and Austin that focused on police training to better deal with drug users on the street for instance while advocating for more funding to social service programs similar to what the defund the police platform was. Instead of a jail cell, an opportunity for rehabilitation and detox is offered instead whenever the drug addict is ready to get clean. Also more effort in getting social services involved in these types of scenarios instead of police, unless the dispatch receives intel of violence on site. Most of the time there isn't. This was being done by local social justice groups around Austin which I can attest to personally, long before George Floyd got killed and even before Freddie Gray.

Whether it's a successful talking point or not with data backing it up is irrelevant to me in a single sample size for a city like Minneapolis. It doesn't add to the legitimacy of it still being a talking point. Maybe city counselors and local social justice groups advocates really did not have a clear plan with their campaigning in Minneapolis. That wasn't the case in Austin. It's not the same in other cities. It's not even the same in other countries with similar enacted legislation when those nations were dealing with similar instances of drug use rising and improper funding to social and healthcare services to meet the needs of this particular type of healthcare crisis.

What I can say when it comes to the more loud and rambunctious groups that advocate for equal rights is even if they don't necessarily have a plan but still bring that energy to city council meetings, is that they still have a role to play. They actually make other similar agenda social justice groups that attend appear to be the calmer groups to discuss and plan with on these type of issues. It's partially why I advocate for getting involved a local level more than depending on anything getting done at a state or national level.

All you have to do is ask your neighbors, friends and family if there are any issues they're dealing with in their day to day life that are impacting them negatively. If you hear a common trend of similar types of struggles, then you take it to other members of your local community who do a similar interviewing of issue(s) with members in their local area and begin the researching and case study process. You actually research if the issue(s) brought up by your local community is actually real, and if it is, whether local officials can be a part of the solution to remedy it. Then after researching to see if the issue(s) are legitimate, you research cost effective solutions to take to local officials, again if they're a part of the solution.

You do this in droves with other politically active local members of the community and take your issue(s) and solution(s) to your officials. Since municipal elections typically only get 1/5 or 1/6 of the voting turnout as state and nation wide elections, your vote actually is 5x to 6x more valuable. Plus you get to make sure your local officials aren't getting their hands dirty in tax payer money, thereby holding them accountable, and make sure potholes in your local area are fixed in a prompt manner and figure out that a community of neighborhoods in the same city you live went without potable water for years until social justice groups advocated on their behalf to have basic living standards most everyone else in Austin receives and probably takes for granted. There was actually resistance from local Austin elected officials to get this issue fixed by the way. That is until they saw all the potential voters that would vote for the other guy next election cycle. And it's not like the battle for issues like these is ever over. Local officials like most any human being, don't like doing work unless they get to do it for optics that make them look better, personally enriches them or are forced by voters to be held accountable.

The truth is I view a lot of posters on both sides in this section of the BBS as out of touch that resort to talking points that again give good optics (thus why I rarely take posting here too seriously), depending which way you lean politically, but do a disservice to genuine social justice work on a local level that is by and large good and betters local communities without representation.

 

To be clear the cuts to Minneapolis' police budget has only recently been in effect as the new budget was only signed in December. During the period from June 2020 was mostly debate within the city government but the populace was very divided on "Defund the Police" as there were groups pushing for literal abolishment of the police to many groups pushing for no change in the police. What did happen though was the protests and debates did take a toll on the morale of LE and there were many retirements along with far fewer people entering the force so effectively the number of LEO was decreased.

The rise in crime during the summer of 2020 I'm not sure can be said to be caused by the Defund the Police movement as there were many factors such as economic and mental stress from COVID-19 shutdowns that could be adding to it. That said there does appear to be a correlation between when the City Council first proposed and rising crime in Minneapolis.

 

I agree that Minneapolis isn't completely representative of the whole country but because George Floyd died here and what happened after George Floyd made national news. The 'Defund the Police" movement came to national prominence here when 9 City Councilors stood in a city park with that sign in the pic I posted.

What happened here was that the issue was being driven far more by emotion and rather than leading the City Council was hopping on the issue because of the anger following George Floyd. The problem was when they pledged to "defund the police" even the ones on that stage weren't in agreement of what that meant exactly nor did most of the constituents.

While Austin might've done a better job it sounds like they did it because this is an issue that has been looked at for a long time and is being done in a thoughtful manner. From what I can see it looks like most of the cities wrestling with this issue seem more like Minneapolis than Austin in figuring this out.

Either way the terminology is problematic., both from if you actually accept it literally or if its just considered a rhetorical slogan. That is why it was so easy to be hijacked and used to cloud the very legitimate issue of LE reform.

 

Austin still has had it's questionable shootings of civilians so by no means are small groups of social justice advocates laying as much of a dent into these issues as perhaps they would like, but that's partially the cynicism attached with being a voter that's just trying to look out for underrepresented people in a local community. I just remember clearly there being a lot of negative connotations with SJW and using meme photos of short haired white women making some funny faced expression and being like, "See?!?!?!?! This the problem with America." And then seeing people from both political parties laughing and nodding delightfully in agreement how bad social justice work is.

Just advocating on behalf of others became a meme talking point turned extremely negative. But then you find a lot of members are generally people that graduated college in some politically involved degree or are people in retirement that have done well for themselves but aren't blinded by the daily issues they'd see members of their community face. You run into a lot more retired businessmen and lawyers and former doctors and nurses and case managers and social workers and former staff to local elected officials that didn't like how their bosses operated and really don't care who is elected as long as the issues members of their local community face are remedied than your memed out short haired white woman screaming at the top of her lungs to the sky in frustration. Don't get me wrong. I laugh at that too. It's not not an accurate representation of the process in my experience is all.

I genuinely wish everyone, including Trump supporters got more politically active at a local level. If anything, it's made me see the issues fellow Americans face on a daily level in a different way that I personally am not subjected to because I have a pretty good life relative to theirs. I dunno though. Even the protestors that show up with a lot of intensity and energy, but don't necessarily have a plan, got the right mindset IMO. Just need to turn that hot anger into cold anger and in addition to addressing an issue, also need to research and develop plans they can present to local officials to fix things. There just aren't enough politically active citizens at a local level for it to make more of a dent into things like police shootings, which I want to make clear on. Sometimes, police shootings are necessary. I think that's a bad talking point, that any shooting by police is a bad shooting, which is a wrong take as well. The Dallas Sniper that was killing LEO and they had to resort to a remote bomb to kill the man. That was certainly justified. There are other far less extreme cases than that where LEO were justified in their defense. There are also plenty of other situations that didn't need to escalate to that level too. Any social justice group that's rational isn't against cops defending themselves though. What they want to avoid though is extrajudicial executions by LEO that didn't need to escalate a situation to that level is all.

 

I don't think the rise in crime had anything to do with the Defund movement but it played right into the narrative of republicans.

I am not basing all of this on Minny just saying it was the perfect storm for the narrative on the right.

 

The data is not from a single city the data is from nationwide.

I agree with what Austin and Seattle are doing and it's certainly not defunding which makes the slogan even worse.

We actually agree on what is needed and what was intended I just think the slogan was wrong and caused more harm than good.

It was to simple and kneejerk.

 

Bubble culture hurts both/all sides, I think. Maybe in different ways, but yeah, people high five each other over their slogan or policy as something everybody will obviously like, without any idea how it will actually play outside their bubble. (And I'm not saying I'm immune to this. Far from it.)