The leftists who think President Joe Biden blew it in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday aren’t just angry that he ducked bread-and-butter issues, such as free health care and the $15-per-hour minimum wage, or that he didn’t tout the communist Green New Deal.
They’re also furious that he turned a longtime, hard-left Democratic talking point on its head. “Fund the police,” Biden said to repudiate the radical push to “defund the police.”
Openly anti-police congressmen, along with Black Lives Matter, quickly took to Twitter to charge Biden with hurting their movement. They want police defunded and dismantled, but the man for whom they voted said no.
“Fund the Police”
“Defund the police” became a slogan after career criminal and drug addict George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose while Minneapolis police restrained him during an arrest.
Leftist Democrats were taken aback when Biden seemingly reversed the sympathetic position he took in July 2020, two months after Floyd died. Biden had first said he did not support defunding cops, but then changed his mind. Some funding, he said, must “absolutely” be taken away from police.
Not so two days ago.
Biden began his remarks on law and order by recounting the murder of two New York City cops. “I spoke with their families and told them that we are forever in debt for their sacrifice, and we will carry on their mission to restore the trust and safety every community deserves,” Biden said.
He has long worked on the crime issue, he said, and we must not “abandon our streets. Or choose between safety and equal justice.”
“That’s why the American Rescue Plan provided $350 Billion that cities, states, and counties can use to hire more police and invest in proven strategies like community violence interruption — trusted messengers breaking the cycle of violence and trauma and giving young people hope,” he said.
Then he tasered “defund the police”:
We should all agree: The answer is not to Defund the police. The answer is to FUND the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.
“Invest in Our Communities”
Soon after, sirens began blaring, and not without good reason. Biden, after all, seemed agreeable. And leftist Democrats had been spewing the slogan for some time, as a mash-up of clips posted to Twitter showed. Two clips feature Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar’s call to “dismantle” the Minneapolis police. Another features Vice President Kamala Harris, and yet another House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Leftist Cori Bush of Missouri is featured as well.
“With all due respect, Mr. President. You didn’t mention saving Black lives once in this speech,” Bush tweeted:
All our country has done is given more funding to police. The result? 2021 set a record for fatal police shootings.
Defund the police. Invest in our communities.
“Activist” Deray McKeeson was equally infuriated. “‘Fund the police’ is not the answer,” he wrote. “They are already well funded & not accountable to anyone & their presence hasn’t led to community safety.”
Black Lives Matter, the openly Marxist outfit that became a fundraising scam to enrich its founders, posted a photo of a scowling Representative Maxine Waters of California, who called for public harassment of Trump Administration officials.
Representative Josh Gottheimer was having none of it. “I’m glad @POTUS and I agree that we need to fund — not defund — the police,” he tweeted.
“Glad” is probably an understatement. Moderate Democrats fear a shellacking at the polls in November’s midterm elections if crazy messages such as “defund the police” don’t stop, and Gottheimer is one of them, undoubtedly. When Representative Rashida Tlaib attacked Biden on behalf of the leftist Working Families Party, Gottheimer told Axios that the criticism was akin to “keying your own car and slashing your own tires.”
Representative Filemón Vela of Texas agreed: “It is astonishing that the radical left continues to promote a Democratic death wish, and sees no problem relegating our party to the permanent minority” he told the website.
Black Republican Representative Byron Donalds explained Biden’s remark:
Fund the police, keep kids in school, liberty and freedom, unmasking Americans… @JoeBiden is so desperate to get his approval rating up he’s stealing Republican talking points. #SOTU
H/T: Ace of Spades, USA Today
