I need people to understand that when centrist Democrats say "we support the goals of defunding the police, we just need a better slogan!" they're lying to you.

They actively oppose support re-investing police funding to social services and are not just asking for a new slogan.

We know this because policing policy is primarily a matter of municipal governance and, with the exception of Ft. Worth and Jacksonville, virtually every big city is run by Democratic mayors and Democratic City Councils, none of whom have any interest in taking on police violence

The reason they prefer slogans like "reform the police" "re-imagine the police " isn't because they want to better frame demands to reduce police department funds in favor of social services, it's because those slogans help them obfuscate the goals of the movement.

They're not proposing "reform the police" as a slogan because they think it'll help sell the goal of re-investing police funds in social services to moderate voters, because they don't support that goal. Their solution is painting the words "Black Lives Matter" on the street.

Let's take the case of New York City, a city where a Democrat is Mayor and 46/51 (not a typo!) City Council members are Democrats. If establishment Democrats actually wanted to reduce police funding to re-invest in social services, they would.

But they don't, because despite embracing the slogan "Black Lives Matter" they have absolutely no interest in challenging the influence of the police lobby. De Blasio and the Council claimed they were going to divest police funds to social services... https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/critics-say-city-budgets-defunding-of-police-is-a-bait-and-switch

...and guess what? They lied. They ostensibly reduced police funds, but in reality just shifted the money around, e.g. removing "school safety agents" (cops that routinely harass Black teenagers) from the purview of the NYPD and into the NYC Department of Education.

But don't say they didn't do anything, though! They painted "Black Lives Matter" in front of Trump tower and made blue check liberals who pretended to care about police violence a couple of months ago excited that Orange Man was #owned!

We saw the same happen throughout the U.S. - Despite Chicago having a Dem. Mayor and Dem. City Council the right-wing Mayor mocked the defund movement and did nothing to challenge the CPD's power, because, at the end of the day, they don't want to!