All I can give you is what the numbers say. The republicans made defund the police a campaign issue especially at the local level. As I stated earlier, it didn't stick to Biden, but it did to other Democrats at the congressional level. The circumstances, the situation and who's running has to be right for it to stick. If those candidates didn't come out and tell the voters that they are against defunding the police, but all in favor of reforming the police, who's fault is that?
Nationally, only 18% support the Defund the police movement, 58% oppose. So if one is a political strategist, trying to tie your political opponent to that movement is a no brainier.
Now when asked about redirecting funds to social services from the police, 43% supported that. If defund actually means redirecting and reforming, you can see the huge difference. 43 vs.18. Still in the minority, but redirect some funding and reforming the police has about two and one half times more support than defunding.
Words, phrases and slogans have meaning. You take your average independent, non-partisan, non-affiliated voter who doesn't pay much if any attention to politics, they'll tend to take words, phrases and slogans to mean what they say.
These folks are more interested if the Braves or Lakers won last night than whether or not the 1-6 has a commission. They're too busy with their regular lives to give politics much thought until an election nears. They have no skin in the political game since they aren't members of either major party. They're standbyer's. What was it, 49% of independents don't care if the commission happens or not. They're much more interested in the NBA playoffs or the next episode of the Walking Dead or Twilight or NCIS or American Idol.
The bottom line is one has to be specific with these folks or they'll take whatever is said as actually being fact. Yet, it is these types of people who decide most elections.
Last edited by perotista; 06/06/21 04:57 PM.
