Research on policing says most of what people believe is bullshit, but every conversation to that end gets bogged down in myths and racist fears and personal anecdotes and intuitions about how they think it could or would or should work if only we did it more or "better."

Likewise, conversations about police violence and "reform" inevitably dead end at the insistence on treating cops as good faith actors with just a few bad apples while no such allowances are made for their victims, which is rooted in those same racist fears and excuses.

Americans are hysterically, unrealistically afraid of crime and white people specifically have an unspoken compact with the police giving them unlimited power and authority over Black people, including violence and murder, in order to uphold the white supremacist status quo.

Cops, prosecutors, and the private prison industry have turned this insistence on mass incarceration and violent racist oppression into a massive grift and a political powerhouse, running roughshod over local governments and effectively putting themselves above the law.

This is all incredibly obvious, as are the reasons why well-intentioned but toothless reform efforts are doomed to fail. The entire culture of policing and criminal justice is corrupt from start to finish, and it's corrupt with the full backing of angry, panicky, racist whites.

It's enthusiastically supported by the GOP as the party of white supremacy, obviously, but it's tacitly supported by Democrats as well, and not only at the local level where Democratic mayors and city councils constantly gut social services to give cops more money and weapons.

The reasons are varied. Some Democrats are just racist. Some believe the myths. Some just don't want to risk white people's ire on the campaign trail. Some think a few tweaks is all you ever need to solve a massive, systemic problem. The results are the same in the end.

We have one party zealously pursuing a racist, destructive, overpriced boondoggle of a criminal justice system and another party that says, "Yeah, that, but nicer."

Is it any wonder people are frustrated.