I mean, every survey we do on these things indicates that like 80% of any given minority group doesn’t tie the progressive line on whatever issue (e.g., “abolishing the police”). I’m not sure what more needs to be done to “speak out”. It’s not like each race has a president that can speak on their behalf (although I probably shouldn’t give the woke folks any ideas).
Do they tie the progressive line on "Make the police accountable and maybe not spend mountains of money on buying them tanks tanks and maybe not let them literally get away with murder?"
Or is that not a 'progressive' line? (In which case, why the hell haven't we gotten it yet?)
I think the likely explanation for this conundrum is that people don't support <whatever strawman of the week is used to attack a caricature of a position>.
> Do they tie the progressive line on "Make the police accountable and maybe not spend mountains of money on buying them tanks tanks and maybe not let them literally get away with murder?"
If you’re asking “do black Americans want police reform”, then probably yes considering 90+% of all Americans favor police reform of some kind. So to answer your other question:
> Or is that not a 'progressive' line? (In which case, why the hell haven't we gotten it yet?)
Not uniquely, no. Why we haven’t gotten it yet: probably because our politics are broken by intense partisanship among other things. Frankly this isn’t a corporate issue (beyond some shallow virtue signaling), so it just doesn’t become a legislative priority.
> I think the likely explanation for this conundrum is that people don't support <whatever strawman of the week is used to attack a caricature of a position>.
This is a well-documented dodge. Leftists have been very clear that they want the police abolished. The media tried to make that message more palatable in advance of the recent presidential election by suggesting it was a euphemism for moderate police reform, and leftist activists clarified that they literally want to abolish the police. This is very explicitly not a caricature.
> Leftists have been very clear that they want the police abolished.
Citation _very much_ needed.
In my experience this is not a position of the left, beyond maybe some fringe <0.1% groups.
Stating that as a "position of the left" as a fact merely reinforces what the GP said: "I think the likely explanation for this conundrum is that people don't support <whatever strawman of the week is used to attack a caricature of a position>. "
This is the whole point we're arguing about up front. That activists have a oversized influence on what we discuss.
Less than half of black people support defunding or reducing the police presence but that conversation has smothered all discussions of more realistic and popular reform.
"Leftists have been very clear that they want the police abolished. "
No, most aren't crazy enough to think that abolishing the police is better than what we have.
Instead, they ask to "defund" the police, and then redefine "defund" to mean that many of their daily services should be given to others more qualified for peaceful resolutions, without carrying weapons, and police should be available for backup of those situations.
I personally remain unconvinced, and I think we'd see a lot of the people doing those services injured because they went into dangerous situations without adequate protection. But I can't deny that the police have shown a lot of poor judgement over the years, so something needs to change.
I think the best reforms are make police officers pay for their own insurance, break up the union, and pay officers more to compensate for the reduced job security.
“Instead, they ask to "defund" the police, and then redefine "defund" to mean that many of their daily services should be given to others more qualified for peaceful resolutions, without carrying weapons, and police should be available for backup of those situations.”
I’m so tired of these rhetorical games. It’s dishonest and we need to stop accepting it as a legitimate form of discourse. No respect for people and politicians who do this.
>Leftists have been very clear that they want the police abolished.
Lazy rhetoric will always let one down in a big way. At the very least, as one is making broad, sweeping generalisations, one will totally miss what the real issues are, and the real problems.
>whatever strawman of the week is used to attack a caricature of a position
Is it really a strawman when a non-negligible number of people in your political camp espouse a position without so much as a hint of irony or exaggeration? Denying the existence of the radicals won't win you any credibility with fence sitters and moderates.
Progressive activists get more air time than they have political power. It’s like how, if you watched the mainstream media before Super Tuesday, you would have thought Elizabeth Warren was a front runner for the nomination.
But, like with the democratic primaries, voting tends to collapse the bubble. Concrete example of this. Progressive Asian organizations attacked Andrew Yang for his normal Democrat take on the police: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/activists-andrew-yan.... But of course Yang is the overwhelming front runner among actual Asian voters in NYC.
> Less than a week after Heritage of Pride (HOP), or NYC Pride, announced a ban on police contingents through 2025, the organization’s members voted on May 20 to allow the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) to march armed and in uniform — but HOP’s executive board subsequently stepped in and set their own policy.
Progressive activists really do believe the things they say. Usually they don’t get their way because it’s a democracy and actual voters don’t support those things.
As to “straw men”—I was rankled last year when my law school faculty declared themselves “gatekeepers of white supremacy” in a school townhall meeting: https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/27/brandeis-dean-declares.... People told me, “well most liberals don’t think like that.” I suspect that’s true, your average Biden voter doesn’t. But there’s 14-15 elite law schools in the country, and the faculty of at least one of them does think like that.
This activist mindset isn’t widespread, but it’s often concentrated among people who have significant platforms. A lot of faculty, young political staffers, etc., do think like that. It’s not straw-manning to call out that behavior.
This is very true and I think people forget that they have the support of almost all mainstream media. This gives the very false impression that they (and their ideologies) represent the majority of the public - but in reality, this is far from true.
Look at ratings for national sports (MLB, NBA especially) lately. This year's Oscars had the worst rating in history.
Coca-Cola's sales plummeted after their "woke" employee training was exposed. Same for Disney. Same for Delta. Parents around the country are descending on their local school boards demanding that Critical Race Theory be abolished.
On the opposite end, when the left tried to "cancel" Goya for supporting Trump, it backfired. Sales went through the roof.
These people are a tiny minority of the population made to seem much bigger and more accepted than they really are by media, politicians and (most unfortunately) Universities - which have become Socialist re-education camps.
Your average Biden voter is either not a leftist or probably voted against Trump. I was with you until that point, because what you're pointing out is that the US is intensely conservative on a national scale, especially compared to Europe. Biden would be center right, at best, in Europe.
Biden would be solidly left on social, cultural, and immigration issues in Europe. E.g. Democrats are freaking out the Supreme Court might uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks (with exceptions for health and fetal abnormalities). But that’s a couple of weeks longer than Germany, France, Denmark, etc. Likewise, France and Germany openly reject multiculturalism, which would be a far right position here in the US. France’s center-left Macron sounds like a U.S. Republican when he complains about “woke American culture.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threa...
Biden is probably median in terms of economic issues. You have to distinguish between what Biden says he wants and where the U.S. is currently. The US is obviously significantly to the right of Europe on economic issues as a starting point. But Biden’s proposal for a 28% tax rate (closer to 35% factoring in state taxes), or his proposals for major hikes in the capital gains rate, are well to the left of where Western Europe is right now.
Thanks for clarifying this, I have often been suspicious of the claim that Democrats in America would be considered center right in Europe, and you list concrete examples of left-leaning political stances in Europe that would be far right in America.
