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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I read the same article just now. He basically said that he will undo everything Trump did thru executive order, but other major policy changes like police reform or gun control are up to Congress. Which means jack-squat if the Dems don't get Georgia's seats in the Senate.
It's a shame, I had my fingers crossed about student loan forgiveness. And Trump already used an executive order to extend forbearance on loans, so I don't see why Biden couldn't.
TBF, Biden is on board with police reform, and he is kind of right that progressives screwed up the branding
Edited by Xopher001 on Dec 10th 2020 at 12:53:59 PM
So did Jim Clyburn. Conner Lamb also said that it was one of the most common arguments used against Democrats in his district.
Even when the poll explained to them it didn't literally mean take all money away from police work, most people still had a kneejerk reaction against it. Note that when similar questions were polled without using the slogan, or even the word "defund" reception was practically reversed in favor instead.
My brief (hot?) take is that while I've heard various arguments as to whether it actually hurt Democrats, it doesn't seem like a great choice of slogan.
For one thing, the de-prefex in English sometimes means "reduce" (i.e. de-escalate and arguably deregulate), but more commonly means "eliminate" (i.e. destroy, demolish), so it's natural that it would be interpreted as a call for abolishing the police, especially because some proponents are police abolitionists.
Also, even just looking at the slogan in terms of a call to decrease police funding, it's an oddly "negative" slogan, in contrast with say "Black Lives Matter".
Like rather than a slogan about police accountability and/or putting social services in the hands of people better equipt to do them (and giving those people funding currently going to police), it sounds like the slogan is about screwing over police by underfunding them.
Or compare with the anti-abortion movement. They don't call themselves "anti-abortion" or say "we want to make abortion illegal" (even though they do), they call themselves "Pro Life". Because "Pro Life" sounds good, and also presents the cause as advancing a positive goal rather than existing in opposition to something else.
On that note, it's worth observing that in Minneapolis i.e. where George Floyd was murdered the slogan appears to have evolved into "Safety for All". At least that was my observation of the latest political wranglings between the city supervisors who are pushing for a further reallocation in police funding towards mental health services; and the mayor who has cut police budgets but that's more in the face of the pandemic and in the long term he wants to see an increase in the number of officers.
Wouldn't mind someone double checking that on the "Safety for All" observation but if I am right what do people think of it as an alternative to "Defund the Police"?
Arguably a bit too vague/noncommittal (but see "Pro Life"), but definitely succeeds at framing the goal as something positive which everyone should support.
Like basically, just look at how Republicans/Conservatives frame any issue when they want to eliminate funding (i.e. "School Choice") and copy that.
Edited by Hodor2 on Dec 10th 2020 at 5:11:39 AM
The devil's in the branding. There was an MMO, I want to say World of Warcraft, that had an interesting experience with branding that politicians could afford to learn from. They designed a system meant to encourage players to take a break after a while and come back fresh later. The way it worked was that after a certain point of time, you would receive an XP penalty to encourage logging off.
Players hated this mechanic. In order to fix it, rather than change the mechanics, they changed the branding. They left the mechanic exactly as is and rephrased the XP penalty for playing too long as an XP boost that players receive for a length of time after logging in. And suddenly players loved it.
Positive and negative branding can have a profound effect on the way ideas are received. They can make or break your pitch.
A good brand is one where critics of the brand need to stop people and try to explain, "No, it's actually not as good as you're thinking, let me walk you through all of the ways that what they're saying isn't actually good, and why it might not even be what they're calling it."
A bad brand is one where proponents of the brand need to stop people and try to explain, "No, it's actually not as bad as you're thinking, let me walk you through all of the ways that what we're saying isn't actually terrible if you just understand the ideas and platforms beneath the brand."
"Defund the Police" was a bad brand because the kneejerk interpretation, "We will no longer have police at all", scared people. It gave people ideas of a world where the criminal justice system just plain doesn't exist anymore; total anarchy with no laws. As a result, it put the burden on Defund's advocates to explain why it's good, rather than on its critics to explain why it's bad.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 10th 2020 at 3:18:28 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
It is. One of the reasons conservatives manage to have such a stranglehold on the country is that they've mastered the art of branding, while liberals are still struggling to keep up.
Republican ideas are horrible, but Republicans are very good at selling those horrible ideas to people who don't have the time or attention span to read a 500-page legal document but are more than happy to regurgitate snappy one-liners.
Democrats have good policies, Republicans have good salesmen.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 10th 2020 at 3:35:48 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Yeah, it has always been an unfortunate trend where certain subsections of the left believe that the sheer righteousness of what they aim to do will magically change the minds of people. It has been seen with the constant discourse about the slogan, and while it is difficult to say for certain how the slogan affected the elections, it is a bit of a problem if your solution to people pointing out that the slogan causes confusion and wasted time as you need to explain what it means is to loudly repeat it, as if sheer repetition will make people listen.
The appearance of doing something is more valued than pragmatically putting into place what you want to do, and part of me wonders if the pushback against political speak (i.e careful phrasing and euphemisms) ties into the seeming unwillingness to try to sell your ideas in other ways.
Don't catch you slippin' now.I've always felt like you could've said "reduce police funding". And people will say that means the same thing, but defund the police can have a connotation of eliminating whereas that one doesn't.
Edited by jjjj2 on Dec 10th 2020 at 6:45:38 AM
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the midDan Pfeiffer on Pod Save America has brought up several times that Democrats as a whole have a brand problem. "In an era of declining split-ticket voting, voters are defaulting to their pre-conceived party preference with less regard for the personal characteristics and policy positions of the individual candidates."
Players hated this mechanic. In order to fix it, rather than change the mechanics, they changed the branding. They left the mechanic exactly as is and rephrased the XP penalty for playing too long as an XP boost that players receive for a length of time after logging in. And suddenly players loved it.
In China though, it’s mandatory to have the 0 xp limiter after a set time for all multiplayer games.
Democrats didn't create 'defund the police', though. Activists did. And a great many Democratic candidates publicly said they didn't support defunding the police, including Joe Biden. But conservative media/Republican politicians tied them to the idea anyway.
I don't know if the slogan hurt Democrats electorally. Not enough data for that, yet, IMO. But what should they do when things they did not say are used against them? Strategically, what's the best way to fight back? (I wonder if Democrats creating a better slogan and being extremely vocal about supporting it across the board would have been one way.)
Edited by nova92 on Dec 10th 2020 at 3:53:39 AM
See: "Defund Planned Parenthood"
No one was under any illusions about what that meant. Taking nearly the same soundboard and then saying "no, when we say it we mean this is just asking for trouble.
The other frustrating thing is that when pointed out how progressive ideas don't have the best marketing, like the difficulty of explaining "Defund the Police", some progressives get real defensive and accuse anyone saying it of being regressive centrists who have no problem with people getting killed by police, and instead double down on using it.
This is the faction that frequently (and understandably) criticizes superficial actions to supposedly combat racism as "performative". But when one is so married to a particular slogan and resistant to trying different ways of self-promotion, I wonder who's being more performative there.
I mean, it seems like the point being made is if your slogan hurts chances of actually getting your point across, then ditch the slogan.
That seems entirely reasonable, the question seems to be did "Defund the Police" actually have an effect, negative or positive, on anything.
Edited by LSBK on Dec 10th 2020 at 6:34:53 AM
At the end of the day, even if you water down Defund the Police, it still has the problem that it's a negative. "Reduce Police Funding", for instance, still begins and ends at the police having less money. To the lay person, there's no clear benefit to that; from the title, you're literally just arguing that police should have fewer resources to do police work.
There are other parts to Defund the Police like the establishment of institutions to do civil service outside of the police, but those aren't in the title. The title is literally just "Should Police have fewer available cops and equipment to do their jobs: Yes/No?" Take away all other factors and ask someone that exact question, and a lot of people who genuinely agree with the motives of Defund the Police will be turned away.
Defund begins at the premise of END THE INSTITUTION OF POLICING, then explains to whoever sticks around past the first sentence that actually we're going to build new organizations to replace most of it and there will still be some cops left all the same. But getting people past that first sentence is where the hurdle lies. That's what makes it a bad slogan. Defunding the police, no matter how you water it down, is a scary tag-line. A lot of people, even the ones who have beef with the police, agree that the police at least should serve a valuable purpose if they don't now.
Dramatically diminishing the police department is a key part of the goal, but it's the elephant in the room. You don't want to come out of the gate going "WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT IF THERE WEREN'T COPS?!?!" Instead, selling those replacement organizations would made for a better platform. Instead of saying, "WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE POLICE and then have new organizations to do their work," it would have been better to say "CHECK OUT THESE COOL NEW ORGANIZATIONS WE WANT TO MAKE which will mean fewer police and funding for police."
Sell the positives and downplay the negatives.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 10th 2020 at 4:41:26 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

In leaked recording, Biden says GOP used defund the police to 'beat the living hell' out of Democrats The president-elect told civil rights leaders he wants to move ahead on police reform — but cautiously.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/leaked-recording-biden-says-gop-used-defund-police-beat-living-n1250757
"That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police. We're not. We're talking about holding them accountable," Biden said Tuesday in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders, according to audio excerpts posted Thursday in a podcast from The Intercept.
Biden pledged that he would follow through on his promises in the campaign to address systemic racism, but warned about getting "too far ahead of ourselves" with critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.
"We can go very far. It matters how we do it. I think it matters how we do it," Biden said.
Even as Democrats have said criminal justice reform legislation should be a priority once Biden takes office, the audio reveals how some of the civil rights leaders want Biden to use his own executive authority to take significant steps, like creating a national database of police misconduct.
Biden said there are some things he would be able to do by executive order, but — as he did often publicly throughout the campaign — said he would not go beyond what he believed his constitutional authority was.
"I am not going to violate the Constitution, "Biden said, according to the audio tape. "Where I have executive authority, I will use it to undo every single damn thing this guy's done by executive authority. But I'm not going to exercise executive authority where it's a question where, I can come along and say, I can do away with assault weapons. There's no executive authority to do that. And no one has fought harder to get rid of assault weapons than me, me. You can't do it by executive order.”