Does Either Side Know What "Defund" Means? - Bernard Goldberg

Does Either Side Know What
“Defund” Means?

Last month, when calls to “defund the police” were popularized
by the “Black Lives Matter” movement, politicians and pundits
on both sides of the aisle quickly understood just how
controversial and consequential of an idea it was.

After all, the common understanding of “defund” can be echoed
by simply Googling the word: “prevent from continuing to
receive funds.”

Even in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and the
identification (and public condemnation) of serious race-
related problems within a number of police forces, it’s
difficult to think of a more societally irresponsible and
politically suicidal measure than removing all police funding.
Such a move would effectively end law enforcement as we know
it, and just about everyone understands that to be a
colossally bad idea.

So, people on the political right understandably (and fairly)

jumped on the slogan and exploited it (along with some empathy
expressed for the sentiment by liberal leaders) as a testament
to just how radical the left has become. In turn, people on
the political left worked diligently (and comically) to
redefine the very meaning of the word “defund.”

The clean-up effort was pretty exhaustive. In fact, if you go
back on over to Google (I swear I’m not a company stockholder)
and search on the phrase “defund the police,” you’ll find a
seemingly endless list of columns by left-leaning writers
explaining what those calling for the action “really” mean.

The liberal-commentary consensus: “defund the police”
represents a less crazy directive: redirecting a portion of
police budgets to social programs not directly tied to law
enforcement, but rather poverty, mental illness, homelessness,
etc.

Of course, that’s not the proper usage of “defund,” as
righties continued to point out while mocking the left’s tap-
dancing on the issue.

More prominent Democratic leaders have steered clear of the
rhetorical contortionism on this matter. Presidential
candidate Joe Biden has stated outright that he doesn’t want
to “defund” the police, but work toward reform. Bernie Sanders
has surprisingly taken a similar stance.

Yet, on Fox News last Sunday, President Trump insisted to
Chris Wallace that Biden does indeed support defunding and
even abolishing the police. When Wallace pushed back against
the assertion, Trump cited a “charter” Biden had put together
with Bernie Sanders. The president was referring to a document
on Biden’s campaign website titled “Biden-Sanders Unity Task
Force Recommendations.” In dramatic fashion, he even called
for an aide to hand him a copy of it, which he then thumbed
through.

There was just one problem: nothing in the 100+ page document

supported Trump’s assertion. It was an embarrassing moment for
the president, who couldn’t uphold the words that had just
left his mouth. Perhaps more damaging was that his team had
been running campaign ads promoting the narrative.

Trump and Wallace moved on, but quite a few pro-Trump folks in
the media didn’t, electing instead to try and save their guy
some face by suddenly adopting the left’s alternate,
previously ridiculed definition of “defund.”

Here’s Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA, citing a recent
Biden interview:

 Chris Wallace says Joe Biden doesn’t want to defund police

 “Can we agree that we can redirect some [police] funding”

 Biden: “Yes—absolutely”

 Joe Biden “absolutely” wants to defund police

 RT so Chris can’t ignore! pic.twitter.com/rcXZyeDunC

 — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 20, 2020

And here’s Byron York from the Washington Examiner:

  “In interviews with liberal activists, Biden has presented a
  much more nuanced position on defunding the police,
  suggesting he supports redirecting police funding toward
  other purposes, like mental health counseling and affordable
  housing. Such redirection would be, in fact, defunding
  police.”

They (and many others) are mostly right about what Biden has
been saying in recent interviews. The presumptive Democratic
nominee has indeed entertained the idea of redirecting some
police funding to social programs. I emphasize the word “some”
because York forgot to include it in his framing of the

argument.

So now, the right-wing media and left-wing media seem to have
found bipartisan agreement that “defund” actually means the
redirection of a portion of funds. In other words, they’ve
finally discovered an issue on which they agree.

Celebrate good times, come on!

But now I’m even more confused. Because if that’s what
“defund” means, didn’t President Trump defund the U.S.
military when he directed some of their funding to the
construction of the border wall?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find it kind of
horrifying (in these linguistically challenging times) that
the 2020 presidential election is now a “binary choice”
between defunding the police and defunding the military.

And   by   horrifying,   I   mean,   “causing   horror;   extremely
shocking,” not whatever dopey, intellectually flexible
definition the political class decides to come up with.

—

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