Was “Defund the Police” Crazy?

It has been more than six years since the largest wave of protests in American history, which also took place during the deadliest pandemic in a century. At the center of those protests was a demand that funding be shifted from police departments to public institutions and services geared toward mitigating poverty. Activists abbreviated their demand as the slogan “Defund the police.”Today we are in a paradoxical moment. “Defund the police” has become a kind of political kryptonite: liberal, progressive, and left-wing candidates alike flinch when asked about it. In a recent interview, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “I have a local city councilman that has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy.’ ” (She went on to explain that, during COVID, “the doors were really open in trying to en