The slogan “Defund the Police” became known two years ago through anti-racism protests in the USA. Now he’s making a comeback. However, from a political corner that actually stands for Law and Order: arch-conservative Republicans.
The fact that the right and the left are sometimes conspicuously close is partly because these wings of the political spectrum are often more skeptical about the state than people in the center. This also applies to the USA. There, even conservative law-and-order advocates are now turning their backs on their own security forces. The development itself is not new, and neither is the slogan that sums up this distrust. What is surprising, however, is the corner from which “Defund the Police” suddenly rings out.
“Defund the Police” as a racism protest
The exclamation in German does not read as crisply as in English. Roughly translated, it means “cut the police money,” and the campaign became famous two years ago. At that time, a police officer in Minneapolis killed African American George Floyd, and the case became a symbol of racist police violence in the United States. Subsequently, “Defund the Police” was heard at many “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations. This did not necessarily mean disbanding the police force or stopping its funding, but rather reallocating the insane billions of dollars that US states spend to keep their moderately successful security agencies running.
However, the idea only lasted for this one summer, and it never won a majority anyway. But now the explicitly left-wing battle cry echoes from the right: “The Justice Department has reached an intolerable level of politically motivated armament,” wrote the Republican faction leader. And added “Defund the FBI”. Notorious conspiracy theorist and House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had even sold T-shirts with those exact words on them, and received heavy criticism for doing so.
FBI no longer sacred
In fact, security forces like the police and the FBI are sacred to conservatives. Law and Order is one of the core elements of Republican politics. But since the US judiciary has repeatedly targeted Donald Trump (among other things because of alleged electoral interference, tax evasion, fraud, sexual assault, obstruction of justice, collusion with Russia), his party friends suspect that behind the countless allegations is a political campaign by official bodies stands. Especially since the Ministry of Justice, as the country’s supreme prosecuting authority, is led by a democratic politician. Your goal is to kill the ex-president.
The conservatives are not alone in this distrust. Almost all US institutions – from the presidency to parliament and the Supreme Court to schools and the health system – suffer from the fact that less than half of all Americans trust them. The Republicans are also partly to blame for these devastating values, they have diligently spread misinformation in recent years: be it about corona measures, the reliability of elections and what happened when the Capitol was stormed on January 6, 2021.
Donald Trump: FBI took passports
The fact that the FBI is now also being discredited by the conservative side also has to do with the special role of the federal police: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a police force, law enforcement agency and domestic intelligence service all rolled into one and is subordinate to a politically led ministry. So much power is apparently now suspect even to those who actually prefer powerful security forces. And the ex-president is no help either in dispelling doubts about the institution: On his platform “Truth Social” he accused the FBI of “knowingly” taking material from his Mar-a-Lago estate that they shouldn’t have taken away . Including his passports. However, he failed to provide any evidence for this assertion.
Moderate Republicans already fear that the radical “Defund the FBI” calls in the upcoming midterm elections in the fall could annoy many conservative voters. “The fight against crime always works for Republicans, they shouldn’t jeopardize the issue,” warns political advisor Alex Conant on the US website Axios.
Sources: “”, Kevin McCarthy on Twitter, “”, “”
Source: Stern
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