Black Democratic mayors from San Francisco to New York, Chicago to Washington, D.C., are working to increase police budgets and put an end to the rule of criminals, according to a youthful Democratic member of Congress who proclaimed the defund the police movement dead on Thursday.
President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are toughening their rhetoric on crime and funding the police only two years after some progressive groups first called for their defunding as violent crime spikes ahead of the November midterm elections.
“People are still against crime and people want to be safe. You’re seeing in communities all across the country that when folks actually came to grips with the conflict of rising crime rates and an effort to quote unquote take away from policing, the public, being way ahead of the politicians as usual, figured out ‘no no no, that’s not a good idea, we want to be safe,” Michael Nutter, a former mayor of Philadelphia, stated in an interview.
To meet with the city’s newly elected Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, a former police officer who has vowed to clean up the streets, Biden came to New York City on Thursday. Many in the party interpreted Adams’ victory in the crowded Democratic primary the previous year as evidence that voters were over rhetorical attacks on law enforcement.
The mayors of many of the nation’s largest cities are now reversing course and leading calls for a tougher stance on crime, two years after Democratic officials across the country allied themselves with protesters demanding the police be reined in and progressives supported the elections of reformist prosecutors.
