We’ve seen a lot of surprising, nasty, shocking things over the course of the last two weeks, but we can’t say we were very surprised to see this one. Whenever Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has the opportunity to be radically wrong about an issue, she inevitably takes it and makes the most out of it. Whether its “Abolish ICE,” suggestions to ban airplanes, or lecturing people to go out in the midst of a growing pandemic and support Chinese restaurants, AOC is an ever-flowing fountain of terrible opinions.
So knowing that, why would we possibly be surprised to see her join the “defund the police” rallying cry. We would be ten times more surprised if she took a moderated, reasonable approach to the (supposed) crisis of police brutality against black Americans.
During a congressional primary debate on Friday, AOC assured voters that she’s “actively engaged in advocacy for a reduction of our NYPD budget and defunding a $6 billion NYPD budget that costs us books in the hands of our children and costs us very badly needed investment in NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] and public housing.”
In making that declaration, AOC may put herself well outside of mainstream American thought, but she is right in line with Black Lives Matter. The group released a petition last week calling for the complete defunding of police in the United States, insisting that we can (somehow) restructure American peacekeeping by putting therapists, drug programs, social services, and other (largely unnamed) authorities in charge of keeping people safe.
The logic behind that assumption is dubious, to say the least. America has done an excellent job over the last two decades in bringing the rate of both violent and non-violent crime down to manageable levels, but take the cops off the street, and you’ll see a spike that will curl your toes and send you to the hardware store for the materials necessary to build a bunker. For as horrendous as the situation has looked in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and other major cities over the last two weeks…just imagine what it would look like if there was literally no one out there to arrest the rioters.
That’s not to say that police have behaved perfectly in quelling this violence; they haven’t. But that’s human nature, especially when confronted by scenes of abject violence and chaos. People – even police – are going to screw up now and again. But hundreds of cops have been injured at the hands of protesters, and you don’t see CNN and MSNBC showing videos of THAT non-stop on their cable airwaves.
Is police brutality an ongoing problem that should be addressed? Sure. But when you have Democrats and other liberals calling for an end to police outright, that’s when you know that the narrative has far outraced the facts.
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