Home
/ Today's Opinions: Will Election Day render ‘defund the police’ defunct?
Today's Opinions: Will Election Day render ‘defund the police’ defunct?
How Biden's Afghan blunder is already endangering U.S. security; If Glenn Youngkin pulls off a win, he'll likely have Hispanic and Asian voters to thank; Count on Democrats to ignore the lessons of a Youngkin win; America's inaction on climate is getting embarrassing; The smart money on climate seems to be barely mitigated doom; Why books have become a battlefield in Texas; Joe Manchin throws a verbal bomb at progressives and accidentally hits the centrists; The Supreme Court's second thoughts about Texas's antiabortion law; When J.D. Vance called himself a hillbilly, it made me mad. Now, I'm upset that he stopped.; Eric Garcetti failed to tackle LA's homelessness crisis. His successor won't have it easier.; It's time to abolish college fraternities ; Flying the unfriendly skies; The Texas case is not just about abortion. All sorts of rights are at stake.; They worked so we could eat: What we learned from the pandemic's meatpacking calamity; LinkedIn was right to leave China. It's discouraging anyway.; Germany has a QAnon problem, and it's not going away anytime soon; A Mayan activist was imprisoned after defending a sacred river. He must be released.; France heats up its war on all things 'woke'; Sudan's people have a taste of democracy and free expression. They want more.
Will Tuesday's elections close the book on the "defund the police" movement?
Post columnist James Hohmann has surveyed the landscape and concluded the answer may well be yes. Rising homicide rates have helped push broader public doubts about shrinking police forces. That trend may be visible in the outcome in mayor's races in Buffalo, Atlanta and Cleveland on Tuesday, as well as the outcome of a ballot initiative in Minneapolis, where the murder of George Floyd in 2020 gave voice and momentum to the defund the police movement.
"'Defund the police' was a slogan meant for the street, not the ballot box," writes Hohmann. "Hence the pullback. But this isn't the first time liberal activists have embraced catchphrases that have come back to haunt Democrats down the road, from 'abolish ICE' to 'Medicare-for-all.' By overplaying their hands with 'defund the police,' the left has also made it harder to get Republicans on board with police reform efforts at the federal level."
If Youngkin wins, every Republican in the country will study his playbook. If McAuliffe loses, Democrats will avert their eyes and cover their ears. Just as they did in 2010.
At Amnesty International, we found irregularities, negligence and a lack of evidence in the case against Caal, and declared him a prisoner of conscience.
Democracy means respect for dissenting voices and journalists' freedom to report, and investment in the infrastructure that makes freedom of expression tenable for the long term.
Email 
