Clarence Page: President Joe Biden needed to defend himself against the ‘defund the police’ smear
When President Joe Biden called for “funding the police” in his State of the Union speech, some outraged conservatives responded like a child whose favorite toy had been taken away.
That’s because the same folks who portray Biden’s election as “stolen,” Democratic electoral victories as “fraud” and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault as “legitimate political discourse” still want to cling desperately to another big lie — that Biden wants to “defund” the police.
“Fund the police, keep kids in school, liberty and freedom, unmasking Americans,” chided a tweet from Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican. “Joe Biden is so desperate to get his approval rating up he’s stealing Republican talking points.”
No, not stealing, just steering. Biden is trying to steer public attention back from what Republicans like to think he said about the controversial “defund the police” movement, back to what he actually has said — repeatedly.
The truth isn’t enough for some people, especially in politics. Many Democratic Party insiders blame this particular Biden myth for the party’s failure to meet down-ballot expectations in 2020.
Now they hope to stop it from causing more damage in the coming midterm elections in which the party is expected to suffer further losses.
Democrats’ own research recently showed that some voters in battleground districts think the party is “preachy” and “focused on culture wars,” according to Politico.
That’s politics. Although the conservative wing of the Grand Old Party actually declared a “culture war” against “liberal elites” in recent decades, now pollsters say voters are blaming Democrats for its excesses.
True or not — and there’s no question that both parties have had their excesses — unless Democrats rebut Republicans’ attacks on issues such as defunding the police, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has warned that they could lose substantial ground to the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections.
Yet, progressive voices inside and outside the party slammed Biden for what The New York Times’ Charles Blow called, “a callous attempt to appease the law and order crowd.”
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