comment: >
  
  
  What are we actually trying to achieve with these phrases? 
  
  With "Defund The Police", for example, I imagine they are trying to achieve defunding the police.
  
  And is it working?
  
  Fox News claims police have been defunded in a lot of major cities, which (if true) would mean that yes it is working.
context: /u/asdf0909 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  In my city the police budget takes up 28 percent of it's budget. We also have one of the highest crime rates in our country. The police budget used to take up 17% in the early 2000's, and has been steadily rising since then... Along with the crime rates. They bought a robot dog from Boston dynamics, they're constantly upgrading thier equipment, increasing salaries, ect. It's clear that whatever the police are doing is not working. Polititions are scared to run on the platform of police budget cuts, the police always put up a massive stink and nothing ever happens. 
  Now for the nuance. Our government is handling crime reactively instead of proactively. They don't follow up on almost anything unless a crime has been committed, which leads to dangerous scenarios. They constantly arrest the same people for public drunkenness and petty crime. We have a very high crime rate, yet the overwhelming majority of cops I see are traffic cops, which isn't even an effective way of controlling traffic. 
  We have a large homeless population in a country where winters get to -40° C. We have an even larger poor population, our public education system isn't the best, and we have very limited resources to help people integrate back into society. Cost of living is rising, and people aren't able to feed thier families, of course a certain percentage of people will turn to crime. People need to survive, and if they aren't given the necessary resources, they're going to have to find them some other way. The way we do things just doesn't make sense. We keep feeding the criminal population by defending public services, then raise the police budget to put more of them in jail. It's ridiculously backwards. 
  Statements like "defund the police" and "eat the rich* are absolutely necessary. People see the ultimacy of backwards, ineffective policies but can't realistically do anything, but they can at least raise public awareness. The more people that believe an ideal means the more people who will vote for someone who supports that ideal come election time. Not everyone wants to invest into politics, a lot are happy to just exist and not worry about them. Phrases like these grab attention and prompt an individual to ask questions, which could eventually lead to positive change. 
  No one saying "defund the police" seriously thinks we should cut out police from society, we just want people to have the necessary resources for survival so they don't have to turn to crime. Eating the rich seams like a great place to get some of those resources.
  I'm from Canada, but currently living in Thailand. There's almost no police here, but there's also almost no crime. Things don't often get stolen, people don't often get murdered. Walking down a back alley in the capital, Bangkok, will get you an interesting conversation, and not mugged. There's almost no homelessness, although there is poverty. It's clear to me that whatever we're doing in North America is not working, we desperately need change. >
  
  Damn.  Thanks for this.  Really integrates a lot of what I’ve been pondering lately.
  I keep coming back to economic Growthism (growth purely for the sake of growth) as the primary culprit.  It sounds simplistic at first, but it is the prime driver of inequality.  The rise of capitalism was founded on colonialism…which was essentially a way to extract and exploit with no strings attached.  It’s ugly.  
  And now, here we are looking at pretty dramatic global inequality. The places that are supposed to be thriving (because GDP as an ideology says a growing economy makes for happy people) are actually pretty miserable (statistically declining since the 50s).  And the rest…well they just get more of the same.  Rich countries exploiting them in the name of growth.  And they’re feeling the brunt of climate-related changes.
  Infinite growth is impossible.  We’re seeing now that it puts tremendous pressure on systems.  Eventually, something has to give.  There’s no debate anymore…infinite growth is synonymous with collapse.  Ecologic collapse (obvious).  Social collapse (shifts to privatization, massive disruptions to food systems, mental health problems, crime, etc etc etc).  It’s all related.  And while the transition is likely to be a mess…growth has to stop.  It had to stop decades ago.  
  None of it is surprising.
  degrowth >
  
  I completely agree, but at the same time, it's almost impossible to stop the tide of progress. I bet you there were Mayans thousands of years ago that petitioned against deforestation, and yet they eventually grew so big so fast that they deforested thier entire land mass, causing the collapse of thier society alongside mass poverty, famine, ect. This all happened about a millennia before the Spaniards came. 
  I want to believe that humans are capable of change en masse, and I think we actually are.. it's just the timeline isn't decades, it's century's or even millennia.   At this point I think we just have to hold out for nuclear fusion, once we have unlimited energy, we should theoretically have the ability to generate enough resources for all. Or perhaps we actually can slowly shift the cultural zeitgeist to a more sustainable one, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe the only thing that we'll actually learn from is another societal collapse, either way, things are getting bad and something absolutely has to give. Thanks for sharing your perspective as well :). >
  
  Respectfully, I believe you may share a different set of values regarding Liberalism vs Radicalism than those from whom the phrases "Eat the Rich" and "Defund the Police" were first uttered. Your use of the word "progress" suggests that you believe in capital-L Liberalism: the idea that our founding institutions and documents are fundamentally good and improvements should be made incrementally through revision (amendments).   
  In their original utterances, the phrases "Eat the Rich" and "Defund the Police" were attached to a more radical ideology, one that believes there is something fundamentally and irrevocably broken about our founding documents. 
  ​
  An adherent to capital-L Liberalism believes progress is possible within the framework provided by the Constitution through institutions like Federal, State, and local government. An adherent to a Radical leftist ideology doesn't believe that progress is possible through these frameworks or institutions because they are, at their core, broken. Progress is only had through the unseating and replacement of these documents and institutions.
  ​
  I do recognize that plenty of progressive-minded adherents to Liberalism have tried to co-opt the phrase "Defund the Police" and soften it to mean "reduce funding for the police," but it's original intention was not to get people on board, but rather to declare a Radical and not Liberal position. >
  
  
  "Defund the Police" were attached to a more radical ideology, one that believes there is something fundamentally and irrevocably broken about our founding documents.
  
  The modern policing structures that “defund the police” advocates are against are not born out of our founding documents, but out of slave patrols. Modern policing structures and practices are actually contributing to an erosion of the rights enumerated in those documents. >
  
  It is generally accepted that the first modern police force was  the London Metropolitan Police, founded on September 29 1829.  The first modern police force in the United States was Boston's from 1838.  While slave patrols likely transitioned into police forces in the south, claiming that modern policing structures are born from slave patrols is at best misleading.
  It would be more accurate to say that they are born from British imperialism and colonization of Ireland, reformed in London, and then imported to the US to fight the influence of leftists, socialists, unionists, anti-capitalists, and immigrants.
  Its best to be accurate about the sordid history of policing. 
  ​
  after writing this, I noticed that you didn't make the claim I thought you did, but felt this should be clarified anyway. >
  
  
  While slave patrols likely transitioned into police forces in the south, claiming that modern policing structures are born from slave patrols is at best misleading.
  
  ONLY in that it's missing the fact that many early police forces in the Northern US were established to break strikes and control labor. I'd recommend Behind the Police as a good primer for a high-level overview of the history of policing in the US. 
  It's Bastards all the way down.
  ​
  
  It would be more accurate to say that they are born from British imperialism and colonization of Ireland, reformed in London, and then imported to the US to fight the influence of leftists, socialists, unionists, anti-capitalists, and immigrants.
  
  this is true at a high level but I think abstracts away the intentionality with which specific policing entities were formed to specifically oppress and control certain groups. It ignores, for example, how the Texas Rangers formed as a vigilante group of white nationalists who decided to cleanse Texas by forcibly interning and deporting tens of thousands of Hispanic residents, many of whom had been in Texas for generations before the "lawmen's" families moved there. >
  
  Ah, yes, I remember the famous Patrick Henry quote, "Give me Liberty or give me modest reforms. We need to respect the Crown Loyalists." >
  
  Idk, that one definitely implies that he's not being entirely literal. 
  Movements like ACAB are definitely poorly named.
  When I hear "all cops are bad!" The first thing I think of is "that's not true"
  Patrick Henry's quote doesn't invoke a response like that >
  
  All cops are bastards is not because every cop is a criminal or an abuser. It’s because cops protect cops. You can’t participate in law enforcement without tacitly supporting all the shitty cops, which makes you a shitty cop >
  
  I just fundamentally disagree with that I guess >
  
  Police who speak up about other police don't remain on the force. The good apples get pushed out or worse, and all you're left with is a rotten barrel. >
  
  You can argue the semantics of the phrase all you want. It’s not going to stop a lot of people, whom you need the support of to affect systemic change from immediately thinking, “That’s not true.” >
  
  So where does it stop? If we compromise one objective truth to get more support, we must be very vigilant that we do not cross the line of what must not be compromised. That's hard when both that limit and what truths are the least acceptable to compromise are both as of yet unknown. >
  
  It’s clearly not an objective truth, though. >
  
  It is, though. It was explained to you already. >
  
  That explanation included the caveat that “It’s not literally all cops that are bad, it’s actually the system.”
  How can you insist a quote is “objective truth” with a hole in it like that? >
  
  As someone who engages in political organizing on a regular basis, there is a place for both. 
  When you sit down with people to have a conversation, you explain the issue. You meet them in the middle. You listen to them, they listen to you. I’ve had a lot of productive conversations with people who I didn’t agree with that way. When advocating for issues, I’ve even done these kind of conversations with elected officials and it’s worked really well. 
  But people get organizing fatigue. Meaning, life is exhausting. We don’t always have the energy to read a book that explains the nuances of climate change or have a conversation about the in depth details of a new bill. So how you communicate to people about an issue needs to be short, easy to understand, and motivating. It needs to be a message that help people understand why the cause is important and gets them excited to do that. 
  In the end, political communication is a balance between making your message easy and accessible and between being more nuanced (but risking it being more complicated). In any situation, the easy message is never the entire message. You always have the chance to understand the issue more, and ideally talk to someone who holds that view in a more nuanced way. >
  
  This is a great response, thank you. I don’t know that I’m against catch-phrases in general, I agree about how important a short catchy phrase is to make the masses understand, but it’s the extreme shock-value nature of these particular ones that I feel are doing more harm than good. I do think a pithy constructive phrase about rethinking our police strategy/accountability is so much more constructive than “defund the police.” Because you’re right, people won’t read more into it, they won’t seek out nuance, instead they’ll dig their heels in with an even more seething disdain for progressive ideas >
  
  I will note that “Defund the police” is one phrase that people seem to be really hung on too, even though it really isn’t widespread anymore. We can’t retract things that were already said. And I think part of why people are hung up on that one and not on other radical sayings is because it didn’t keep up with with its momentum. 
  During the 2020 protests, the catchphrase did a lot of what I talked about- it was easy to understand, and most importantly, it energized people to go out to the streets and protest. People started to talk about change. But the public mindset about policing just needs more educating. 
  It’s not that those phrases do more harm than good, but that change is a marathon, not a sprint. You use the catch phrases/calls for action when you need to energize people. When that isn’t happening, it’s a long and boring road of talking to people, educating them, and promoting for legislation. I don’t think it’s the catch phrase that is preventing change, but that people’s minds haven’t been changed yet. A big part of advocacy is also changing the public opinion. I’m sure that the civil rights movement had or Women’s suffrage had a lot of interesting catchphrases that back then people thought were radical and are preventing change and now we see them as pretty chill. >
  
  !delta 
  Thank you for such a well-articulated, respectful, persuasive response. I now see the value in the marathon over the sprint. Do you recommend any text I can read more about on this subject--  the long-game, or marathon of change? Thanks again. >
  
  You’re welcome! :) Honestly, nothing comes to mind at the moment (sorry about that). But tbh, I feel like I learned the most about this from experience. I volunteered with an advocacy group for a few years and got to see the different steps they took to advocate for their cause (social media, meeting with legislators, phonebaking)- even though I studied political science, I learned a lot more for seeing this work happen. Asking people who do this kind of work about the ins and out of their day to day job helped me a lot too. I hope that helps! >
  
  People who crave nuance in rhetoric shouldn't be looking for slogans. You're getting mad at something designed to be short, snappy, and memorable, because it isn't something it ever intended to be.
  Plus, like. Fundamentally, every single movement is decried as 'too extreme', that people need to 'calm down' and 'meet in the middle'. People said the same shit about MLK Jr. and the civil rights movement, they said the same shit about LGBT people dying of AIDS. This argument has never been true, it just sounds nice. >
  
  But OP isn't saying the actual movements are too extreme. They're saying that the slogans don't accurately represent the movements. People in the civil rights era had straightforward slogans like "Integration Now", "Free Mandela", and "Stop Lynching". Some people disagreed with those ideas and thought they were extreme, but they were accurate slogans. People who chanted "Integration Now" wanted schools to integrate, so they just said what they wanted and everyone understood. Whereas the people chanting "Eat the rich" do not want literal cannibalism, or even murder. So if people hear "eat the rich" and don't know about the context, they're going to think "what, that doesn't sound like a good thing to join", even if they would have been fine with "tax the rich a lot", which is what the protesters actually want.
  Although based on my experience with people who say immature things like "eat the rich", their intention is not to win new fans at all. They say those things to bond with other people in the same movement and let off steam. >
  
  
  People in the civil rights era had straightforward slogans like "Integration Now", "Free Mandela", and "Stop Lynching". 
  
  How about, "Free all political prisoners," or "I am a White agitator," or “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” >
  
  Nooo we can only have the family-friendly Civil Rights movement, not the ones with all the scary socialists, Marxists, and anarchists!!! >
  
  
  The way to persuade people is to meet them where they are, to find common ground and help them understand why their current view needs changing
  
  That's the way things should be if everyone was educated and debated intelligently. The past shown us that this is not what works well. 
  What works well is to move the Overton window to your side till you're at the center of it. 
  To give you an example, I'll talk about my country, France. In the 70ies, the far right was nearly non existent: just some extremists that everyone looked with contempt (0,75 % of votes at the presidential election at that time). Then, they forced their themes in the medias through awful catchphrases (such as "1 million unemployed is 1 million too many immigrants" or "Gas chambers are a minor poit of detail of history" for example). And once their exaggerated point of view has been heard a lot by everyone, they switch their candidates and proposed a "moderate" vision (which is still far right, but without insults to minorities). And it worked really well: today the far right party (the "national gathering") is France 2nd party in terms of votes in the presidential elections. If they tried to convince people through discussion about their ideas, they would never have obtained anything: feelings are more powerful to move someone than rationality. >
  
  This is my theory too, but is there evidence of these particular phrases working here in the US and actually moving the needle? I feel like police bodycams were agreed upon DESPITE the phrase “defund the police.” >
  
  Black Lives Matter, MeToo. Both of those simple, catchy phrases created a LOT of discussion and policy changes. Hell, Toy Story 2 had a casting couch joke in it. Do you think that sort of normalisation would be possible in a post MeToo world? A lot of people have the luxury of being able to live in ignorance of a lot of the struggles that are common in the world around them. Big, punchy slogans make those issues impossible to ignore. >
  
  !delta. Thank you for these examples, the articulate responses, and the evidence of where these phrases have worked >
  
  Thanks! Glad you found my comment useful! >
  
  
  it's infuriating most practical people who crave nuance in rhetoric
  
  If you crave nuance, you wouldn't stop at a three-word catchphrase. Instead, you would read deeper into the thing and seek, you know... nuance.
  
  The way to persuade people is to meet them where they are, to find common ground and help them understand why their current view needs changing.
  
  Cool, but why does it only have to come from one side? Why can't people resenting "Eat The Rich" also seek the common ground and start a conversation? >
  
  
  Cool, but why does it only have to come from one side? Why can't people resenting "Eat The Rich" also seek the common ground and start a conversation?
  
  Because most of the time, the people that "crave nuance" are just looking for excuses to do nothing and pretending to be deeply shocked by that slogan is good enough.
  People were doing the same thing during the Civil rights era. >
  
  Did you just ironically make the argument from that one meme everyone uses? “If you criticize society why do you still take part in it” 
  Thank you for the most useless addition to an already pointless argument that OP was making >
  
  So thats a yes? You are asking us why we have phones when phones are literally now a mandatory feature to function in society? We are not criticizing tech you dolt. Stuff like phones could exist without obscene wealth. Or are you one of those people who think that if it wasn’t for billionaires there would be no innovation? >
  
  Who suggested communism? are you so devoid of thought you equate me saying being a billionaire is bad with communism? >
  
  And? Where did I even say Eat the Rich? Or where did ai advocate for communism. I am not Pol Pot, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
  And Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not a communist. Being a critic of capitalism does not make you a capitalist. The biggest flaw in capitalism is it takes away the individual right, and individual rights was a large part of his philosophy. Calling anyone who is not strictly a capitalist, a communist, is such a lazy argument.
  And when he said eat the rich, he was not being literal. He was saying that once the poor are subjected enough, they will turn on the wealthy. 
  But all of this leads back to you bringing up communism fir some reason when ai never mentioned it. I am not a communist. I think reasonable wealth is fine. The idea of absolute equality is a pipe dream. What Im against is greddy assholes purposely hoarding wealth snd preventing the poor from bettering themselves. Im against people being billionares but not paying their employees a living wage.
  Understand the difference? >
  
  
  They feel driven by shock value in order to garner personal attention
  
  They literally are. That's sloganeering. That's the point.
  What happened on the Right is that it held this slogan to its literal sense, disingenuously (because that's not how sloganeering works), and that's what is stunting progress. It's the Right's denial of the issues themselves and insistance on pedantics that stunts progress, regardless of what they're called or what slogan is used to address them.
  
  What are we actually trying to achieve with these phrases? And is it working? Because to me, it sounds like it's doing more harm than good.
  
  There was no conversation at this level about police budgets beforehand, but now there is, so it seems to have worked, no? >
  
  
  What happened on the Right is that it held this slogan to its literal sense, disingenuously
  
  Except there's a significant portion of the "defund the police" user's who actually want to abolish the police. And while cannibalism is a bit of a stretch, there are many who think the rich should be executed and their resources redistributed. >
  
  And they believe these things for very observable reasons. I’m not agreeing but I definitely see where they are coming from, if the police never do their job why should they have one? If the rich ruin the lives of others…. >
  
  I dont understand how people can simultaneously belive that the US has too many people incarcerated and that cops dont do their jobs. And the rich don't ruin the lives of other; at least most don't. >
  
  The fact that you equate a policemans job performance with the number of people they incarcerate is incredibly troubling. It also shows a complete lack of understanding of how "defund the police" types view law enforcement. A theoretical idealized police force exists to protect the public and keep them safe. Activists argue (correctly) that police actually exist to protect private property and wealth. So their argument isn't that cops don't do their jobs. Their argument is that cops do do their jobs, and that job is shitty and cruel and locks up far too many people who are no threat to society at large. Hence why abolition is a talking point. That you fail to understand this shows you havent thought about the leftist position on police with any depth >
  
  Is it not a police officer's job to arrest criminals?
  
  Activists argue (correctly) 
  
  Saying something is correct doesn't make it so, especially when it's so easily shown to be false. Cops settle violent disputes every day. They take murderers and rapists off the streets. You're assuming I fail to understand it because I was just easily able to dismiss it as comically wrong. >
  
  They aren't useless traffic stops: speeding is highly dangerous and causes about 10,000 deaths each year. The person who wrote that seems to ignore the fact that people are getting pulled over for committing crimes. That's both the problem with and a sign of poor and biased reporting. >
  
  
  They aren't useless traffic stops: speeding is highly dangerous and causes about 10,000 deaths each year. The person who wrote that seems to ignore the fact that people are getting pulled over for committing crimes.
  
  It's clear you didn't read the article, because
  
  Moreover, most of the stops are pointless, other than inconveniencing citizens, or worse – “a routine practice of pretextual stops,” researchers wrote. Roughly three out of every four hours that Sacramento sheriff’s officers spent investigating traffic violations were for stops that ended in warnings, or no action, for example.
  
  If the people pulled over were committing crimes, and the job of police is to arrest people committing crimes as you attest, they why do most stops result in these purported criminals not being arrested? >
  
  Again, saying something like "most of the stops are pountless" just shows this is not reliable journalism. 
  And if you don't understand the point of giving someone a warning for speeding or having an out headlight... it's like you're just totally lacking in real world experience on the matter and incapable of critical thinking. Either that or you're being willfully obtuse. >
  
  What if we rearranged them. Defund the Rich and Eat the Police! >
  
  Radical words inspire radical change, which is what we need >
  
  Defund the rich, eat the police.
  There, is that better? >
  
  No, no. Incrementally defund the rich, incrementally eat the police. >
  
  Are you familiar with the Overton Window?
  Look at PETA. I remember when their views were considered absolutely crazy by pretty much everyone. Yet, people are much better about animals welfare than when PETA started. Sometimes you have to push the extremes so that there's more room in the middle.
  So if increasing the top tax bracket is the most extreme thing people are talking about doing, it will never happened. But when people can go "I'm not in the 'eat the rich' crowd but they could pay more taxes" that becomes a lot better. >
  
  Right, I think this is a logical response. And I think you’re right, but I also see a world where “I’m not in the ‘eat the rich’ crowd” doesn’t end in “but they could pay more taxes,” it actually REPELS them from being associated with “tax the rich” mindset and community in general. We’re so team-oriented, we are always thinking of the people associated with the mindset. It’s such a shame if this stupid attention-grabbing phrase made people rethink completely which team they want to associate with >
  
  Slogans are calls to action. They need to be short and concise declaration or a problem.
  The nuance comes as you have the large consensus on the problem and direction of the solution.
  As much as it may pain us:
  “Defund the police” is not succeeding because it’s obscuring the the nuanced message of reduced police scope, reduced profiling, more community programs… it’s because the nuanced idea isn’t actually that popular. The most vocal advocate whom have adopted the reforms (San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland) have seen more crime and more homeless vagrants in the streets - not less.
  Similarly, “Eat the Rich” is not catching on because you have not secured the consensus of enough rural blue collar workers & middle class suburbanites.  The nuance of upper income tax reform to fund education and affordable housing does absolutely nothing for blue collar and older workers with a mortgage. The slogan is, somewhat correctly, associated with entitled urban 20 something liberal arts students only.
  The issue with these ideas isn’t failed nuance. 
  It’s a larger consensus building issue. >
  
  
  The most vocal advocate whom have adopted the reforms (San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland) have seen more crime and more homeless vagrants in the streets - not less.
  
  Nice cherry picking of data. Want to go ahead and look at crime data nationwide from 2020-2022 to see if the same trend applies to cities that did not defund police at all? How about including cities that increased their policing budgets?
  What's that? Amazingly, those 2 years show a nationwide upward swing in crime across cities nationwide that is completely uncorrelated with changes in police budgets? It's almost like you're trying to fit facts to an existing narrative rather than starting from data and trying to see what it says?
  ​
  
  The nuance of upper income tax reform to fund education and affordable housing does absolutely nothing for blue collar and older workers with a mortgage. 
  
  My brother in Christ, HOW does raising taxes on billionaires to fund crumbling infrastructure, pay teachers better, and pay for healthcare, etc. not help people who suffer from shitty infrastructure, understaffed schools, and high healthcare costs? The ONLY reason blue collar workers have for identifying with billionaires is because the political party they identify with has convinced them that what is good for billionaires is good for them - in complete opposition to any and all available evidence, mind you. >
  
  
  Nice cherry picking of data…
  
  I live in the San Francisco area. The crime spike can be directly attributed to mayor Breed’s policies, DA Chesa Boudin, and CA Prop 47. Breed had to do an about face and Boudin was recalled.
  I can’t speak as directly for local politics of Seattle & Portland.
  
  Want to go ahead and look at crime data nationwide from 2020-2022 to see if the same trend applies to cities that did not defund police at all 
  
  If you want to to show that defund (or the more nuanced version of it) a is good strategy, you must showcase success stories. 
  Saying that the advocates of the strategy failing doesn’t count because no one succeeded is not sufficiently compelling.
  San Francisco crime spiked harder than most other places, with again a straight line to the policy causes.
  
  My brother in Christ, HOW does raising taxes on billionaires to fund crumbling infrastructure, pay teachers better, pay for health care…
  
  Teachers and most infrastructure is paid for by the state government, not the fed. The special projects are like rail and urban infrastructure like the Big Dig. Rural and suburban voters don’t use subways or city infrastructure day to day.
  The biggest education funding initiative being talked at the federal level is student debt relief. The older folks whom paid their student debts and blue college don’t need that.
  The aggregate combined wealth of US billionaires is 4 trillion dollars. If you were to seize 100% of their wealth, you have only paid off just over 1/10th of the national debt.
  Look I personally am an urbanite and believe that billionaire wealth (and specifically, their power/influence) is egregious… but the basic math says ‘just tax the billionaires’ is not sufficient to fund the programs you want to fund. The vast - and I mean vast - majority of the US tax revenue comes from upper-middle class workers (doctors, lawyers, engineers).
  Again I’m with you in wanting to make infra improvements and curb the influence of the ultra rich. But you’re not creating a compelling story for rural/suburbanites, nor is your nuanced math sound. >
  
  
  The biggest education funding initiative being talked at the federal level is student debt relief. The older folks whom paid their student debts and blue college don’t need that.
  
  FYI you are incorrectly using “whom” in place of “who.”
  If you don't believe me paste that paragraph into Grammarly (you can use it for free).
  I don't often correct people’s grammar but since using the word “whom” at all is somewhat pedantic (and believe me, I’m all for that), to misuse it is a pet peeve of mine. >
  
  
  these dramatic phrases are pushing away a pretty overwhelming majority of people
  It's not just activists and extreme leftists. It's common among everyday liberals. I'm liberal and live in a liberal city, and I hear these phrases all the time.
  
  So these phrases are pushing people away, yet you are also now hearing everyday liberals say them all the time? 
  The fact that everyday libs are more and more onboard with these things seems kind of like evidence that they're working, doesn't it? That rather than pushing people away, it's actually attracting them?
  Also, what reforms specifically do you think we're missing out on due to people being turned off by these slogans? Like, what was happening before they became more common that was halted by them?
  For example, Ferguson happened in 2014, well before "defund the police", when "sensible" people like Obama and Hillary were in charge. What exactly were they doing to resolve that that was so much better than what has been achieved since defund the police?
  And as far as Eat the Rich, what exactly did sensible Obama, who was basically elected to break up the banks following 2008, do? Nothing. Dodd-Frank literally entrenched the banks and established a pipeline for them to borrow on the public credit without the need for any votes or political noise or awareness via the Fed "discount window".
  I don't see any evidence that these phrases are "stunting progress", because I don't see any evidence that there was much happening prior to them at all. They came about in response to years and years of centrist inaction and appeasement in the face of conservative aggression.
  
  What are we actually trying to achieve with these phrases?
  
  "Defund the police" -- Draining large amounts of funds from militarized police departments to reduce their ability to operate, stripping them of most of the jobs they currently do, and reallocating those funds/reassigning those jobs to care-based organizations focused on helping people rather than punishing them
  "Eat the Rich" -- Increase taxes on rich people and businesses and use those funds to help the rest of society in a variety of ways.
  It's pretty clear.
  But if you do decide to respond to me here, there is something I'd like you to include: what do you actually want in regards to these areas? Like, do you want to significantly change the way policing works and/or significantly decrease the amount of money society allows rich people to keep?
  Because if you disagree with these goals, you're probably not going to like any slogans for them. And if so you should probably acknowledge that your disagreement is on the goal itself, not the tactic. And it's probably more productive to discuss goals, rather than talk at cross purposes. >
  
  Well then, it's a good thing that nobody has ever suggested that firebombing Malibu would help anyone. >
  
  But eating the rich would be impossible, that’s so many people. Plus, the majority of people aren’t cannibals. Take comfort in my wisdom. >
  
  What if you were a cannibal and literally wanted to eat the rich? >
  
  Yes repeating the slogans doesn't actually start progress, people being on board and actually doing the slogans would account for progress. they are a call for action and if you have enough momentum and people behind you to make the threats real you see changes in policy. all forms of social progress was demanded by the masses not delivered on a silver platter. >
  
  The problem with Defund the Police isn't that it's so bombastic, it's that it doesn't even reflect the ideology well. Nobody sane wants to cut all funding from the police, it's about diverting some of the police funding to other services that are better suited to the job.
  It would be like using the slogan "Eat the babies" to represent the ideology "Have less babies so there is less food consumption and we can eat the food the babies would have eaten." >
  
  Most people don’t care about politics. 30% of people actually vote. That’s stunting progress >
  
  Nuance scales poorly. 
  If you need to explain in scientific terms what splitting an atom does, your audience would lose interest. If you make a simple "Goes Boom" then a lot of people get the idea quickly and those who are more interested woud be more likely to invest time in studying he topic.
  The point of a slogan is to quickly dissimenate the idea to the maximum number of people. It doesn't mean that the slogan is realistic or attainable, slogans are advertisements. >
  
  when the rich have already eaten everything and are ringing the last bit out of the people the only fair way is to eat the rich. the only thing people get wrong is who are the rich? the rich are not your neighbor whos the doctor with a boat it is the guy with 4 houses and buys a yacht because hes bored. >
  
  Pretending not to understand hyperbole is not the same as being or desiring nuance.
  Pretendind not to understand something is universally a sign of arguing in bad faith, in fact.
  The country is being driven apart because we fundamentally disagree about the issue. A conservative could spend 4 hours telling me all about the nuances of "Lock Her Up" (what, you don't have an issue with that one?), but at the end of the day I will still think he's just wrong. The lack of nuance is not the issue. >
  
  Depends on your definition of progress because your objection to both those statements imply you like the political status quo as is ,or benefit from slow change and therefore are willing to compromise at the expense of people who suffer constantly in their life from both ends of police brutality and capitalist exploitation.
  Fact is people tried incremental change and compromises with Slave holding class , and that didn’t work out to well til drastic measures eventually came about. 
  Same with militarized police and capitalists who exploit the poor and have repeatedly undercut the economy. Who in turn work glove in hand. Compromise has been tried and incremental change only benefits the oppressor. How many recessions, ,corporate price gougings, mass layoffs and limitations to workers rights which create poverty and reactionary protests  and suppression by said military police are people supposed to endure til this “change” occurs? Why is it the oppressed who must continue with their misery while this slow gradual change occurs, while the rich prosper and get richer at their expense in the meantime? 
  Better question is..what middle ground is there between the oppressed and the oppressor? >
  
  "Defund the police" isn't extreme. Police budgets many places are incredibly bloated, often due to unfair practices, and most of that bloat is put either into salaries or military grade weapons. "Defund the police" is a direct call for a reasonable solution to a real problem, especially since the follow up with such groups is always to put the money into other social services and emergency responders that would further help reduce crime (certainly more than tear gas and hummers do) >
  
  Yeah the police are currently expected to do the jobs of 10 people. Even if you are extremely pro-police you should also want the police defunded, broken up into more manageable jobs and handled more efficiently. It is beyond unreasonable to expect LEO to have memorized all laws, be experts in mental health, know all signs of abuse, know at least basic forensics science, be skilled in deescalation and hostage negation, and so on. >
  
  I think the police having the budget of some militaries and the rich not paying their fair share is doing more damage to progress than a saying is.
  Then again why invest in education, healthcare and social support when you can full equip the police force with weapons and armour so they can feel safe whilst abusing power. >
  
  It seems like you're under the impression that the reason the right wing opposes economic reform and police accountability is because they haven't seen the right slogan for those movements.  What makes you think that people who do not currently support those movements are simply waiting for the right catchphrase? >
  
  
  The way to persuade people is to meet them where they are, to find common ground and help them understand why their current view needs changing.
  
  Okay. How has that been working? 
  I get why you think that these slogans shouldn't be working. But they are. More progress is being made than ever before. No thanks to the hand-wringing, pearl clutching "moderates" crying about "nuance." 
  Moderates have been demanding nuance since the days of MLK and long before. Can't remember a time they ever got anything done though. You want to change someone's mind by meeting them where they are, go right ahead, no one is stopping you. >
  
  
  They feel like the kind of language that's actually halting progress and dividing the country further.
  
  This is a feature, not a bug. Who benefits when the country is divided? Fringe extreme groups. Just look at the extreme fringe of both parties, it's not just a left or right issue, though the left makes worse slogans. Get enough people to vote third party, and soon you don't need to appeal to a majority of Americans. >
  
  Is that enlightened centrism I detect? 
  
  Get enough ppl to vote 3rd prty and soon y don’t need to appeal to a majority of Americans 
  
  Im not following? >
  
  I guess my theory is that both major parties are trending further away from the center. Centrists won't feel at home in either and leave in greater numbers for third party options. Once this reaches a critical mass, candidates can win a given position with fewer and fewer votes. >
  
  Centrist candidates are the draw for centrists, not third parties. Third parties are there for the outer flanks of the two main parties. Centrist will never form a real third party when they can just pendulum between the two >
  
  You could be correct. That said, support for third parties is growing. The libertarian party is an example of a party that appeals to both left and right leaning individuals, and it's membership has grown dramatically in recent memory. >
  
  The centrists you're talking about also don't want to tax the rich, so I really don't see who is put off by it besides people that would also be put off with "more nuance".
  Also keep in mind that the US political landscape is very shifted to the right. To an European, both republicans and democrats are on the right for example. You're not gonna reach more people by advocating for higher taxes, you're gonna reach the same amount of people by saying eat the rich. >
  
  
  Democrats are far left according to European standards.
  
  What left wing policies do the Democrats support that aren't already present in European centrist policy? (keep in mind I'm referring to the democratic party, not just Bernie and "the squad") >
  
  
  Lesbianism, bisexuality, sodomy, transvestism
  
  You could maybe argue that the Democratic party supports the state not having the power to regulate people's private sexual lives and identities as long as everyone is a consenting adult, but I dont know how that's an inherently left wing position especially when the Republicans claim to be the party of "small government".
  Are you saying you want the government to decide what consenting adults you can have sex with and how you have sex with them?
  
  crime abolitionism, 
  
  Is getting rid of crime a left wing position?  I mean I agree that Democrats want to do something about crime, generally but I actually think they are too eager to go all in on police and drug laws.  Biden, for example, wholeheartedly supported massively increased police funding and signed a bill into law that provided funding for police pretty early in his term.
  
  abolition of the nuclear family, support of pedophilia
  
  None of this is true, and you don't have any credible evidence to support it.