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Defund the police is a very precise demand. It means cutting police funding. Anyone who uses the phrase without endorsing cuts to the police is either intentionally trying to manipulate people, or confused. "Reform the police" is an obscure platitude that vaguely implies change.
Further militarizing the police is a way to reform it. Increasing its funding is a way to reform it. Irrelevant digressions like implicit bias training (lol) are a way to reform it. The best thing to say about it is that divestment is one of the many contradictory possibilities
So "Reform the police" is so abstract it might mean a myriad different things, but people who support calls to "defund the police" want a specific thing, to reduce their financial support. So they will still have to explain this is the actual content of their demand for reform.
So, "reform the police" definitely calls for explanation that "defund the police" does not actually require. The latter is plainly understood and only requires justification, of which there is ample.
Now "reform the police" puts people in the awkward position where they have to explain that by "reform" they mean "defund", and then also cite the justification for this, anyway. So, at best, it obscures the actual demand people are making in a way that lacks rhetorical benefit.
At worst, if people are not permitted to explain that by reform they mean defund, then the function of this trick is to obstruct people from expressing the specific demand they are actually making, so as to obstruct them from pursuing it, which is clearly malicious manipulation.
The only option it leaves open is to articulate "reform" in a way that is either irrelevant with what people want, or outright contradicts it, or to be silent. Either way what is deceptively promoted as a better expression of the same demand turns out to be a different demand.
This is the point here, in my opinion. "reform the police" is not an alternative way to express the specific demand to "defund the police". It does not express a specific demand at all, and it is almost certainly a way to recapture political resources towards different ends.
"b-but r-r-reform the police p-polls better with republicans"
Bootlickers prefer "reform" to "defund" because they can tell these are two different things. They prefer "reform" because they *don't* want the police defunded, not because its musical sound caresses their ears.
Bootlickers prefer "reform" to "defund" because they can tell these are two different things. They prefer "reform" because they *don't* want the police defunded, not because its musical sound caresses their ears.
