At Dividied We Fall, Michael Javen Fortner writes:
“This concerted nationwide attack on police is nothing less than the gravest assault on the rule of law in modern times,” U.S. Senator Tom Cotton blared a few months ago. In a partisan broadside, he added, “The simple fact is that today’s Democrat Party is pro-riot, anti-cop, and anti-prosecutor. Democrats today have more sympathy for violent criminals than for innocent victims.” When former Democratic President Barack Obama dubbed “defund the police” a counterproductive “snappy” slogan, U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush responded, “With all due respect, Mr. President – let’s talk about losing people. We lost Michael Brown Jr. We lost Breonna Taylor. We’re losing our loved ones to police violence.” She pressed, “It’s not a slogan. It’s a mandate for keeping our people alive. Defund the police.” There we have it: a debate where one end of the ideological spectrum considers police reform an existential threat to the rule of law and where the other end sees law enforcement as an existential threat to Black life. Like with so many issues today, these extremes do not represent the bipartisan, cross-racial consensus that exists among the American people.