The Media Urge to Explain away ‘Defund the Police’

The hot protest slogan and hashtag of the moment is “Defund the Police.” At times, it’s also framed as a call to abolish or disband the police. Ordinary speakers of the English language would naturally assume, listening to people chant “defund the police” in the streets, carry “defund the police” signs, and literally paint “defund the police” on the streets of D.C., that such people mean “defund the police.”

But not our media! There’s been an immediate rush to write pieces explaining that, of course, “defund the police” does not actually mean “defund the police.” From a Washington Post op-ed by Georgetown Law professor Christy Lopez, entitled “Defund the police? Here’s what that really means”:

Be not afraid. “Defunding the police” is not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds . . . Defunding and abolition probably mean something different from what you are thinking. For most proponents, “defunding the police” does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever.

From an Associated Press explainer by Michael Balsamo, Zeke Miller, and Michael Sisak entitled “When protesters cry ‘defund the police,’ what does it mean?”:

But what does ‘defund the police’ mean? It’s not necessarily about gutting police department budgets. . . . Supporters say it isn’t about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money.

From Matt Yglesias at Vox, “Growing calls to “defund the police,” explained”:

The basic idea, though, is less that policing budgets should be literally zeroed out than that there should be a massive restructuring of public spending priorities. . . . Police abolitionists are proposing a scaling-back of the scope of police activities that is far outside the horizon of current political possibility, so they may not articulate the most fine-grained details.