A quote from the Biden Trump debate. Which candidate said this, Trump or Biden?

"I put more – we put more police on the street than any administration has. He wants to cut the cops."

As a reminder, Biden is the candidate that needs more Black men to vote for him, or he is likely to lose the election.

As a reminder, Biden is the one that pushed for and passed the 80s crime bill.

As a reminder, Biden is the one that instructed cities to transfer ~$1B of Covid relief funds to police budgets.

Y'all are betting the future of the free world on Biden being able to say and do stuff like this, and then still get 95% of the votes of Black men? Seriously? That's the strategy?

Man, lemme go ahead and prepare for this next Trump term then, because that strategy is awful.

How did y'all ever think that would work?

@mekkaokereke I can find N>0 poll that indicates >0% of black voters support increased funding of police. https://thegrio.com/2022/10/25/black-voters-thegrio-kff-funding-police/

@escarpment

I really hate this talking point.

I've posted on here many many times, that the one thing that Black people want the police to be able to do, and the one thing that they are awful at doing, is solving murders. Solving murders doesn't require *any* increase in police budget, and in fact, decreasing police budget helps. 🙂🙃

Because you can't solve murders in a community that (wisely) doesn't trust you, because you brutalize it without consequence.

Black folk want murders solved.

@escarpment

Imagine if your family member was murdered. I ask you, "Do you want the cops to come and investigate?" Of course you say yes.

So I have 5 cops show up and punch your wife in the mouth, knocking out her front teeth. You ask me, "what are you doing?!" I say, "Do you want the cops or not?" And then we leave.

The next week, the same murderer I didn't catch, kills again. Twice.

Now I ask you if you want more cops to help solve the murders.

If you say yes I hire 5 more teeth punchers

@escarpment

There are only 15 homicide detectives in Dallas, on a police force of 500. 15!

Most of the rest of those cops make the 15 homicide detectives' jobs almost impossible, because most of what they do by time and arrests, is abuse and over-police poor Black people. This makes very few Black people want to talk to the police.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109824317074546161

If you ask a person in Dallas if they want more help solving murders, they say yes.

They want more homicide detectives' and zero abuse.

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

Dallas PD has a budget of ~$500 MM, and has 3,000 officers and around 500 civilian workers. They only have ~15 homicide detectives. The other 2,985 officers do a lot of policing of "high crime" neighborhoods. Arresting lots of poor Black folk for drugs and other minor crimes.

Hachyderm.io

@escarpment

I accurately predicted that Dallas's homicide rate would start to go down. Because they hired San Jose's police chief (Eddie Garcia) who understands more than most that cops can't police a community that doesn't trust it, and a community can't trust an adversarial police force that brutalizes it and preys on it for ticket and court fee revenue. The two things are fundamentally at odds.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110152507573506129

This is where weirdos get confused and think that I'm pro-cop. I'm not.

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

Years ago I called that the Dallas violent crime rate would start to reduce. And it did.🔮🧙🏿‍♂️ I'm calling it now that violent crime in Chicago is also going to come down*. Just like I called that violent crime in Chicago would increase under the last mayoral administration (a Black mayor, I might add). Here's just one factor that resulted in *increasing* Chicago crime, and will now result in it *going down*. https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109785330115485502 Understand that the racism and the harm are *systemic*.

Hachyderm.io
@mekkaokereke I'm not commenting on the efficacy of the policy of funding the police, just the apparent existence of the constituency and therefore the possible effectiveness of adopting that political talking point. Like in family feud, there's no "right" answer, just what other people *think* is the right answer.

@escarpment

But it doesn't work.

Phrasing disingenuous survey questions doesn't change the fact that when a Black voter sees that we redirected Covid relief funds towards "tough on crime" SCORPION units that beat unarmed Black men to death, it makes them not want to vote for Biden.

@mekkaokereke I honestly have no idea what makes who want to vote for anyone. The electorate is an inscrutable high dimensional matrix where, at best (most rational) voters are taking SUM(personal importance * candidate alignment) for every issue and candidates are attempting to maximize electoral votes given each voter's importance / alignment matrix.
@mekkaokereke It is plausible that someone in the Biden campaign ran simulations and found that the "increase police funding" angle increased expected electoral votes vs the "decrease police funding" angle, but maybe campaigns still aren't that sophisticated.

@escarpment

It's fair for you to say that *you* don't know what makes people want to vote for someone.

But I do.

Which is why my election predictions are so often so accurate. 🔮🧙🏿‍♂️

It's not inscrutable. It's quite simple. Especially in this case.

The math does not work for Biden to win with under 80% of Black men voting for him, and with low turnout among Black voters. And Biden's actions are suppressing his own Black voter turnout, and destroying his chances with Black men voters.

@escarpment

If folks read carefully, I haven't said how I'm voting, or if I'm voting at all.

All I've done is what I always do every election: give highly unpopular (with white folk!), but highly accurate, info about how voters are going to behave.

With some cohorts I give *excruciatingly detailed* supporting info about why they feel the way they feel.

With others I don't give the why, because I don't know. But I give the outcome. Eg "More white women will vote for Trump than Biden."