[su_dropcap]S[/su_dropcap]o this is happening, now.
Over the last few days, the hashtag-slash-movement #DefundThePolice has been making the rounds. Predictably and disappointingly, the Professional Left™ have been clutching their pearls and collapsing with the vapors because they just can’t understand why anyone would say something so radical.
Frankly, I’m sick of it. Folks in the audience, okay, I get that because that’s the narrative you’re fed and there’s little motivation to look outside it. People like Cenk Uygur at popular left wing media outlet The Young Turks, however, simply don’t have that excuse.
I want to be clear: I like Cenk. I like TYT. But it’s time we stopped letting them have those excuses. So here’s the basic breakdown:
– When you are negotiating, you always start from a position far in excess of what you actually expect. You want to pay ten bucks for that depression glass at the flea market, you start off by offering three and then haggle. This is the root of #DefundThePolice. It’s also a tactic that’s thousands of years old and there’s not the slightest excuse for anyone to not be aware of it.
– The “left” in the United States have always failed miserably in this regard, which is the root cause of what’s now known as the “Overton Window.” Like this:
Left: “fascism is bad.”
Right: “that’s very intolerant of you. Also, anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t own property is garbage.”
Left: “well, for the sake of upholding free expression, we guess we can allow some things to be said without accountability or challenge, if it’ll make you feel better and bring you to the table.”
Right, now at table: “Anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t own property is garbage.”
Left: “Well, that’s kind of racist.”
Right, now screaming, “anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t own property is garbage and how dare you call me a racist, that’s outrageously rude and we won’t stand forit!”
Left: “Well, we can understand that some people who aren’t white and don’t own property are garbage, so we can compromise on that. How about we only let you subjugate 90% of the non-whites, and agree that the 10% of them who own property aren’t garbage?”
Right: “Well, I never, how can you suggest that someone who isn’t One Of Us could be anything but garbage? You’re comparing us to garbage? And half those people don’t deserve their property anyway!”
Left: “Okay, we’ll give you half the non-white people’s property and agree that anyone who isn’t white and doesn’t own property is garbage, stipulating that garbage has rights too.”
Right: “No, garbage doesn’t have rights, you liberals are ridiculous! Now you want to give rights to garbage? You must be stupid, middle America will never allow that!”
Left: “Okay, we’ll compromise. We’ll take away half the property owned by non-whites and give it to you, and agree that everyone who isn’t a white property owner is garbage.”
The left then smugly announces they’ve forged a compromise with the right to secure the basic rights of white property owners. Progress!
That is an illustration of the Overton Window, and the right wing has owned it in the US since the mid-20th century at least.
With #DefundThePolice, someone on the left finally figured out how to play this game effectively. It’s intended to have shock value. It’s intended to jostle and upset and discomfort. Why? Because that’s what gets people talking, and it’s working. Dialogue is happening, people are being presented with propositions they believe unthinkable, and then when their attention is centered on the issue, being brought around to accepting basic realities about police and military over-funding, over-prioritization of punitive and authoritarian tactics instead of substantive and good-faith negotiation to ensure human rights are protected and the ideals of this nation upheld.
Note again: it’s working. People are having these conversations. Even the esteemed Mr. Uygur, in the middle of decrying and disclaiming the tactic, has done precisely what the statement is meant to do – get people thinking and engaging and talking about these issues, working toward real change, and being unafraid to be radical or outside the box.
What the people behind that movement-hashtag have done is deliberately stepped outside Noam Chomsky’s “range of allowable debate”:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.- Noam Chomsky, ‘The Common Good‘ (p. 43)
This is a tactic employed many times by Bernie Sanders, with great success, and it will be successful here as well.
I’m not going to go into “what defund really means” because it means what it says. Police and paramilitary authoritarian agencies are far and away the most highly funded public service in this country, and those funds are tragically misallocated away from education, health care, mental health, social services, housing, food, transportation, and a thousand other things that actually do reduce crime.
Now we’re finally having that conversation in earnest, and we wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for those radical, “unworkable” hashtags and dialogues that are supposedly so self-defeating and off-putting.
QED: It’s working. And when we get to the “compromise” position instead of “well how about we just promise not to use the tanks unless we really really need them,” the compromise position is “get rid of all the tanks,” and the hard position is “or we’ll just get rid of your entire existence.”
That’s how we win, and that’s why #DefundThePolice, #AbolishPolice, and other “radical” hashtags and ideas aren’t just “not the wrong way to do this,” but the best way anyone’s even tried in a long, long time.
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