Tangle - Defunding the police hits the ballot.

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

On Tuesday night, 18 months after the murder of George Floyd, Minneapolis voters went to the polls to vote on a ballot amendment to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety organization. The ballot measure was rejected by voters by a 12-point margin. While that was happening in Minneapolis, voters in Cleveland cast ballots to approve a civilian commission to oversee the police department. Voters in Austin, Texas, voted to reject a proposal that called for expanding the police force, which would have mandated that there be two officers for every 1,000 residents.Today, we take a look at the state of the "defund the police" movement and what these latest developments mean.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.You can support our podcast by clicking here.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police

procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. If you were listening to this podcast whilst waiting for a flight,

would you be relaxing in a premium airport lounge? No? Then start your journey with One World, a leading alliance of world-class airlines. Reach top-tier status with a One World member airline's frequent flyer program, and you can enjoy an array of benefits, including priority check-in and boarding, and access to nearly 700 premium airport lounges around the world. Discover more at oneworld.com. Tons of conditions apply.

From executive producer Isaac Saul welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about some of the defunding the police ballot measures that were voted on this week, some of the responses to those, some commentary on where things are, and my take about the movement. It is Thursday, November 4th. It is freezing cold here in New York. It's also cold in my office. Thursday, November 4th. It is freezing cold here in New York. It's also cold in my office.

I've got my hoodie on. I'm excited to buckle down with you guys and jump in. As always, before we get started, our quick hits for the day. First up, the Biden administration set a January 4th deadline for private employers with over 100 employees to comply with its COVID-19 policy that calls for either weekly testing or vaccination among employees. Number two, Republicans blocked the Senate from beginning debate on a voting rights bill named after the late Representative John Lewis, the Democrat from Georgia. Number three, the Federal Reserve says it will ease its pandemic era asset purchasing, a widely expected first step in slowing down its stimulus efforts. Number four, a recount in Florida's Democratic primary to replace Representative Elsie Hastings could begin as soon as today. Number five, the Pentagon issued a report that

China is planning to quadruple its nuclear stockpile to at least 1,000 more heads by 2030. China criticized the report. All right, that brings us to today's main topic, which is defunding the police. On Tuesday night, 18 months after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, voters there went to the polls to vote on a ballot amendment that would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety organization. The ballot measure was rejected by voters by a 12-point margin. Question 2 asks voters, shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the police department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions by the Department of Public Safety with those specific functions to be determined by the by the Department of Public Safety, with those specific

functions to be determined by the mayor and city council by ordinance, which will not be subject to exclusive mayoral power over its establishment, maintenance, and command, and which could include licensed peace officers, in parentheses, police officers, if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety, with the general nature of the amendments being briefly indicated in the explanatory note below, which is made a part of this ballot. And then there's an explanatory note below explaining how funding of the Department of Public Safety would work, etc. So while that was happening in Minneapolis, voters in Cleveland were also casting ballots on whether to create a civilian commission to oversee the police

department. Voters in Austin, Texas were voting on whether or not a civilian commission to oversee the police department voters in Austin, Texas were voting on whether or not to expand their police force, mandating that there be two officers for every 1,000 residents. The police-centric ballot initiatives follow a larger trend over the last year and a half of cities considering ways to reform their police departments. It also set off a wave of commentary before Tuesday's election and since about the state of the Defund the Police movement and other progressive pushes to overhaul policing, what it means that Minneapolis, the city where much of this started, got its initial momentum and failed to pass this amendment. Below, we'll take a look at some commentary on that from the right and the left, and then my take. All right, first up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right was vehemently opposed to Minneapolis overhauling its police department and is happy

that the amendment failed. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said, if you are a criminal, you are going to love question two on Tuesday's ballot. The ballot measure would eliminate from the city charter all requirements for a chief of police and minimum levels of police funding. A commissioner nominated by the mayor and approved by the city council would lead the new department. Criminals won't be unhappy. Violent crime in the city is up nearly 30% this year compared to the first 10 months of 2019. The city has had 78 homicides this year compared to 48 in the entirety of 2019. The police department has lost about a third of its sworn officers, the board added. It now takes about 15 minutes to respond to a 911 call,

and Mr. Arredondo says the department is in triage mode. Question two would make it even harder to recruit new officers. We'll see on Tuesday whether the city's voters are ready to play criminal roulette. In the St. Cloud Times, Dan Johnson said we need more police and lots of them. We have lost our minds, Johnson wrote. Last Friday, six carjackings happened in one evening in Minneapolis. Overall, per MinnPost, carjackings are up 38% in the city in 2021. Additionally, last weekend on Sunday, Minneapolis recorded its 79th homicide. The murder puts the city within striking distance of last year's 84 total homicides. In the past, such a spike in violent crime would result in bipartisan call for more policing.

But this year is not like most years. Instead, Minneapolis is voting on a measure to effectively abolish its police department, Johnson wrote. The fact that such a ridiculous idea is getting serious enough attention that it even became a ballot question is a sign of how outrageous some of the left's demands have become. They argue we should abolish the police, yet also implement more strict measures of gun control. Exactly how do they intend we protect our families if we will have no law enforcement to call for help or gun to protect us? If someone is trying to break into my house during the night, should I call a social worker to come reason with the mentally disturbed individual? Will social workers get lights and sirens on their cars to get to my house quickly?

In the National Review, the editorial board pointed out that the Star Tribune polling shows that only 14% of black voters believe Minneapolis should reduce the size of its police force. 75% of it said it should not. Among black voters, the current police chief, who is black and has been in office since 2017, i.e. before, during, and after George Floyd's murder, is extremely popular, 75% favorable, 9% unfavorable. White voters' approval is much lower at 56-23. On the ballot measure, Black support trails White support by 9 percentage points. 51% of Whites want the new Department of Public Safety, but only 42% of Blacks do. These numbers indicate that this vote could be very close. It shouldn't be, the board wrote. By rejecting City Question 2, Minneapolis voters have a chance to send a message to the country. Anti-police progressives are on the defensive.

Much of the Democratic Party in Minnesota wants nothing to do with this ballot measure. Most Black voters, whom progressives claim to want to help, overwhelmingly reject many of their views. All right, that's it for what the right is saying, and that brings us to the left's take. So the left has been supportive of police reform, but has mixed feelings about the Minneapolis ballot measure and defunding the police more generally. In USA Today, Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, said that win or lose, activists are making ground on this issue. When grassroots organizers were in the streets protesting, skeptics dared them to come up with a policy solution, Mitchell wrote. When organizers called for a reallocation of funding from police into community services,

skeptics said that position wasn't popular. When Minneapolis organizers collected more than 20,000 signatures to get question two on the ballot, the fear-mongering about getting rid of police officers began. The Yes for Minneapolis Coalition, the group that organized this ballot initiative and which I have publicly supported, is pushing an investment in non-police responses to emergencies, Mitchell wrote. The proposal means creating a department where trained professionals in mental health services, homeless outreach, social work, and other community services offer wide-ranging solutions to harms. And yes, wide-ranging solutions will also include the presence of a trained police officer. We've seen what can happen when communities come together to look for alternatives to policing to solve safety issues. Violence interruption programs, in which unarmed members of the community mediate conflicts before they turn deadly,

have curbed gun violence in Baltimore, Maryland and Richmond, California. In his newsletter, Noah Smith wrote that defund the police is dead. A new Pew survey shows that support for defunding the police is falling rapidly and that support for increasing police funding has risen. Nor is this a function of Republicans or white people or old people getting freaked out by reports of crime on Fox News or Facebook. Among Democrats, black people and young people, the balance of opinion has shifted substantially in the direction of more police funding. In fact, support for increased police funding outweighs support for cutting police funding among Black Democrats and Hispanic Democrats even more than among white Democrats, though for all three, increase outweighs decrease. To be blunt, this means that defund the police is dead. Stick a fork in it. Some cities will cut their police budget, especially if their

tax revenues are doing really badly due to economic circumstances. But in general, the police will not be defunded. This was probably inevitable. The slogan was always one that required a torturous exegesis to use in public. Normal people aghast at the notion of abolishing the police had to be reassured that defund just meant shifting some police functions to unarmed responders, while activists had to be reassured that yes, the ultimate goal was really police abolition. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel

a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province.

Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCcellvax.ca. In the Star Tribune, the editorial board told voters vote no on the ballot measure. The ballot question that would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with the Department of Public Safety has major failings that make it a dangerous and unacceptable gamble for the city. What Minneapolis wants and needs is actual police reform, the board said. Minneapolis needs police, good ones, the ones who welcome accountability and transparency, who want as much as anyone to be rid of the rogue cops in their midst, who have the training and ability to curb the current surge of violent crime. Changing a toxic culture is hard work that requires patience and persistence, the board said.

Similar reforms have benefited St. Paul, where, as described in an editorial last week, officers for the last five years have been trained to work in teams instead of performing lone takedowns to de-escalate and to rely less on pain compliance. The results are compelling, a 37 percent reduction in use of force, an 86 percentage drop in officers striking suspects. These are the kinds of changes that make for better, more humane policing that makes the entire community safer. All right, that brings us to my take. Okay, so look, it's unsurprising to me that the ballot measure failed and less surprising that defunding the police more broadly is losing popularity, especially during a wave of violent crime across the country.

I have written a lot about police reform, abolishing the police, and the defund the police movement. From the beginning, I, and the defund the police movement. From the beginning, I've said that defund the police was a bad slogan, something akin to build the wall, except for a policy that had actually much less public support. A rise in violent crime has only exasperated shortcomings of the activist language, and if progressives in Minneapolis can't even pass this ballot measure, you can guarantee it's not going to happen in any other major U.S. city anytime soon. One rule in politics that some very smart pollsters have pointed out is that you typically need at least 60% support for a piece of legislation or a ballot measure in order to expect to win a vote on it. Legislation is not the same as political candidacy. People say they want something until that thing is written down on paper, gets pushed through the ringer of criticism and left-right polarization, and gets spit out in campaign ads and mailers. By the time the 60% supportive

segment goes to vote, it's often possible that support has dwindled down to below 50%. In this case, there is a clear divide between the progressive activists and the communities they claim to be speaking for, whether it's communities of color or low-income working communities. If you look at the polls, what you can deduce is that if you pick any random upper-middle-class white progressive on Twitter, they are probably more likely to call for defunding the police than a random urbanite living on low wages. That's because the people experiencing crime in their neighborhoods aren't fans of having police disappearing. What they want is better-trained police who won't treat every poor person or person of color as if they're a

criminal by default. They want good, accountable cops, not no cops at all. In the long term, I'd love to imagine a world where we don't have armed officers of the state patrolling the streets and acting with near impunity. I'm probably as far left on this issue as any other, and witnessing how police works in a city like New York has only made those feelings stronger. There is plenty to love about the Abolish the Police movement if you focus hard on imagining a future of peaceful resolution and violent criminals getting the help they need rather than 20-year sentences that harden them further in prison. But that's not something that can be turned on or off like a switch. Better ideas on public safety abound. Spending larger portions of police budgets on retraining social workers and other mental

health experts to respond to the huge chunk of 911 calls that involve someone in a mental health crisis are a good start. Many cities are already seeing marked success with that plan. Requiring longer training or simply requiring police to have a college degree is another proven way to reduce police violence. I've advocated forcefully for abolishing qualified immunity and banning no-knock warrants and chokeholds as well. Much like how we view politicians needs to change, we also need to rethink how we view police. They work for us. They are civil servants. Our tax dollars pay their salaries, and the laws of our country that we vote for are supposed to regulate their actions and behavior. National databases to track police misconduct, more transparency in local police jurisdictions, and civilian boards to ensure police aren't left to self-regulate are all strong steps we can take too.

I don't blame activists for pursuing a police-free future or taking a swing at tearing down the whole thing in Minneapolis. But if you're going to come forward with a radical plan like that, the bare minimum you need is a fleshed-out plan to show voters how you're going to map the policing strategy going forward. They didn't have that. They weren't even close, which is why they couldn't even get all those friendly to the idea on board. It's an opportunity miss, but only if that lesson isn't learned. All right, that is it for my take on today's issue. Moving on to a reader question. This one comes from Max in Boston, Massachusetts. Max asks, will the U.S. ever amend the Constitution again?

It seems unlikely given that we will never see the Senate or House have enough agreement to reach a two-thirds threshold. Yeah, it seems very unlikely to me. I mean, I think this is a fascinating question to consider. The last amendment to the Constitution was the 27th Amendment, which prohibited any law that would increase or decrease the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until after the next election of the House of Representatives occurred. The amendment was basically designed to discourage members of Congress from constantly giving themselves pay raises, which was something they were doing frequently over a few year period before this amendment came into law. It passed in 1992, and it's largely done its job. It slowed the rate

that members of Congress increased their own pay. What's fascinating about the 27th Amendment is that it was basically a one-man crusade, and the guy who practically willed it into existence had no real political power to speak of. He just campaigned really well on this issue, which I think is a good reminder of how unpredictable something like this could be. There are two ways I see another amendment ever happening. One is that Republicans absolutely crush Democrats over the next 10 years and retake more than 60% of the House and Senate, which puts them right at the edge of 66% needed to pass an amendment with a party-line vote plus a few Democrats.

Two, something very politically dangerous to vote against is brought up as an amendment. The most obvious one there is the Equal Rights Amendment, which would explicitly grant women equality under the law and has already passed with two-thirds of the House and Senate in 1972. Once an amendment passes the House and Senate, though, it needs to also be ratified by 38 states. The Equal Rights Amendment only got 35. Now, for all sorts of weird, quirky reasons, the Equal Rights Amendment is kind of out of vogue now. It's expired, I think. It's time limit for when states can ratify it. So they'd have to bring it up all over again and do the vote all over again and probably change it a bit. But that's an amendment I can think of maybe passing and becoming law. Republicans have proposed

amendments like bans on flag burning or mandating a balanced budget, but they don't have nearly enough support from members of Congress or the states necessary to pass. One other potentially viable option is some kind of reform on something like campaign financing, which I think we could get a large portion of the public on board for, but it's hard to imagine a majority of politicians supporting that, even if the public was overwhelmingly behind it. So while 12,000 amendments have been proposed, just 27 have been adopted in our nation's history. And I've got a bad feeling that the 27th is probably the last one we'll see for a long time or potentially ever. But of course, you know, never say never. potentially ever. But of course, you know, never say never.

All right, that brings us to our story that matters for the day. On Tuesday, voters in Maine approved an amendment that enshrines their, quote, right to food, becoming the first state in the U.S. to approve such a measure. The amendment declares all people have a, quote, natural, inherent, and unalienable right to grow, raise, and produce and consume their own food of their choosing. It may sound silly. Do we really not have that right already? But advocates for the bill say it is a major step towards producers retaking control from corporations in the food supply. Opponents of the bill said it was too vaguely worded and could have unintended consequences like small and mid-sized farms skirting government safety regulations. The Washington Post has a fascinating story about the amendment that we link to in today's newsletter. All right, that brings us to our numbers section, which includes some numbers about today's main issue. 47% is the percentage of adults overall who said net funding

on police in their area should be increased. That's according to a September 2021 Pew poll. 15% is the percentage of all adults who said net funding on police in their area should be decreased, and 37% is the percentage of all adults who said it should stay the same. So 47% increase, 15% decrease, 37% stay the same. 38% is the percentage of Black adults who said net funding on police in their area should be increased, according to the same poll. 23% is the percentage of Black adults who said net funding on police in their area should be decreased, and 38% is also the percentage of Black adults who said net funding on police in their area should stay the same. So that's 38 increase, 23 decrease, and 38 stay the same among

black adults. All right, finally, that brings us to our have a nice day section. A new study conducted by Cancer Research UK said that the HPV vaccine is cutting cases of cervical cancer by nearly 90%. It's the first real worldworld data on the vaccine that we have. Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by viruses, and researchers hope that vaccination can practically eliminate the disease among women. More than 100 countries have already started using the vaccine, and this study followed what happened in England after the vaccine was introduced to girls in 2008. The study showed a reduction in both precancerous growths and an 87% reduction in cervical cancer. Overall, the study estimated that the HPV program has prevented about 450

cancers and 17,200 precancers, according to BBC News. All right, that's it for our Have a Nice Day story and our podcast for the day. Just a quick reminder before you go, tomorrow is our Friday subscribers only edition. They come out every Friday. Tomorrow, we're going to be talking about the supply chain chaos. We are interviewing somebody today who's an expert in the field. We might even have a podcast coming out about it, but you're only going to get it if you are a subscriber, if you're a member of Tangle.

It's one of the few things we put behind the paywall, our Friday editions. They're typically people's favorite part of the newsletter, so you should definitely subscribe and become a member. In order to do that, you can go to readtangle.com backslash membership. Also, if you want, you can just become a supporter of the podcast by clicking the link in our episode description. All right. Thank you guys so much for tuning in,

and we'll see you tomorrow, I hope. But if not, we'll talk to you on Monday. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. If you were listening to this podcast whilst waiting for a flight, would you be relaxing in a premium airport lounge? No? Then start your journey with One World, a leading alliance of world-class airlines. Reach top-tier status with a One World member airline's frequent flyer program, and you can enjoy an array of benefits, including priority check-in and boarding,

and access to nearly 700 premium airport lounges around the world. Discover more at oneworld.com. Tons of conditions apply.