The Emerging Tension in the Democratic Party: Woke vs. Works
Joe Biden’s authorship of the 1994 crime bill. Bernie Sanders’ vote in support of that crime bill. Michael Bloomberg’s support of stop-and-frisk policing. Pete Buttigieg’s firing of South Bend’s first black police chief. Kamala Harris’ tough-on-crime approach during her time as a prosecutor. Amy Klobuchar’s tough-on-crime approach as a prosecutor. At times during the 2019-20 Democratic primary, it felt like the contest was not about which candidate had the best record on criminal justice issues--but which one had the least problematic record.
That’s not surprising. For much of the time between say 1980 and 2014, Democrats were trying to avoid being cast by the GOP as the too-soft-on-crime-too-connected-to-black-people party. So that meant virtually all Democratic politicians who wanted to rise up the party ranks, even the black ones, established their centrist credentials in part by creating some distance from black people. And this was not just at the national level. The majors who were described as successful were generally those who presided over reduced crime rates, more white residents coming back to their cities or not leaving them for the suburbs in the first place and more businesses and development coming into neighborhoods that had a lot of black people. (Often, black people couldn't afford to live in the redeveloped areas. And crime rates started declining before many of these cities increased the size and budget of their police forces and adopted more aggressive policing tactics and those crimes rates have not increased since those aggressive policing approaches have been abandoned, suggesting they were not actually the reason for the dip in crime rates.)
That Bloomberg, despite the controversy around his policing record, got the endorsements of so many mayors, including black ones, during his presidential run should not have been surprising--many mayors, both and non-black, have generally followed his approaches as mayor of New York in their cities. (Aggressive policing and a focus on both development and keeping white residents in the city.) Louisville’s Greg Fischer, who is white, was among those who backed Bloomberg during his presidential run.
Why does all of this history matter? Because right now, people like Biden and Fischer are using terms like systemic racism and pledging to reform the police and other institutions in the wake of the protests of the last few months. But activists in Louisville don’t seem to trust Fischer at all---interrupting one of his recent events in a way that gained national attention. Black Lives Matter activists nationally are expressing lukewarm feelings about Biden and the potential of Harris being selected as his running mate.
There are two questions at the heart of this dynamic. First, knowing their records, are figures like Biden, Harris (the likely vice-presidential nominee) and Fischer actually committed to changing America’s racial status quo--or are they really just sounding “woke” right now when it’s popular to do so and will support only very mild proposals on racial issues or will walk away from controversial proposals the moment any poll shows moderate voters are uncomfortable with them? Secondly, even if such politicians are really committed to pursuing major changes, can they ever convince the activists that they are serious and therefore the two sides should have real dialogue? Having a controversial record on racial issues arguably creates a barrier that can’t actually be overcome.
Watching Fischer the last few weeks, I wonder if the first question (whether he is committed to major change) doesn’t actually matter, because the answer to the second question (can he build sufficient trust with activists and others pressing for change to have a real dialogue) might be no. You could imagine a mayor, after watching the last few months in Louisville, proposing an agenda that included major reforms to the city’s policing, putting more money into projects targeted at Louisville’s black community and trying to have a lot of conversations with the city’s younger activists, particularly the black ones. Fischer is trying to create a review board to oversee the city’s police. He signed into law a provision limiting no-knock warrants. He sounds interested in connecting with the activists. But my impression is that they don’t trust him at all--and that limits potential changes.
But the activists are skeptical about Fischer--and they might be right. The Louisville mayor may either actually be ideologically opposed to major changes or unwilling to push for them if they become controversial, so there might not be much value in trying to negotiate with him. For example, Louisville’s city council recently adopted a budget which Fischer signed into law with little objection that actually slightly increased the budget for the city’s police, even as other cities cut police funding amid the recent protests. And if you watch the actions of other center-left mayors like Fischer, it seems like they are determined to defend police funding at all costs. Washington, D.C.’s Muriel Bowser is hinting that she will refuse to implement cuts in the city’s police budget adopted by the DC City Council over her objections. Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot recently suggested that cutting her city’s police budget meant denying jobs with middle-class wages and benefits to black people, as if the city couldn't create other public service jobs that paid similar wages.
Fischer is leaving office due to term limits in 2022, so electoral considerations don’t matter much for him. But politicians like Biden and Harris got to where they are (close to the Oval Office) by figuring out where the consensus of public opinion was and being slightly (but not too far) to the left of it. The reason that basically all the major Democratic presidential candidates’ records on criminal justice reform issues look kind of bad now is that all of them were positioning themselves in the 1980-2014 tough-on-crime consensus that no longer exists. But if the politics of these issues moves to the right, it’s hard to imagine politicians like Biden and Harris leaning into more controversial ideas like diverting funds from policing to social services, reparations or aggressive school integration plans, if those things don’t poll well.
To conclude, we are about to have a big fight among Democrats over what I think of as woke v. works. To be a leading Democratic politician today, you have to invoke phrases like the racial wealth gap, racial inequality, Black lives matter, and systemic racism. But the activists know what a woke Democrat sounds like and don’t really care about the rhetoric--they want major changes, starting with policing and then extending to other sectors to reduce racial inequality and racial injustice. The budget for Louisville’s police is currently around $190 million. Local Black Lives Matter activists wanted to cut that budget by $100 million. That’s a big gap--meeting in the middle would mean cutting police spending by about $50 million. The two sides are really talking about different visions of policing--a debate that is about values and vision as much as dollars and cents. The national Democratic Party platform that will be rolled out soon is expected to call for a study of the idea of giving reparations to black Americans. Ultimately though, particularly if Democrats control the U.S. House, Senate and presidency next year, as seems possible, this issue is not about detailed plans, but about this core question: are non-black Americans, who did not personally enslave anyone or enact laws limiting black freedoms, willing to target resources to specifically benefit black Americans to make up for those past wrongs?
So on racial issues, the big questions right now, as you assess various Democratic politicians, are these: 1. Does this person actually believe deep systemic changes are needed? 2. Are they willing to fight for them even if real resistance emerges? 3. Do they have any credibility with civil rights activists, so they can reach agreements with those activists on changes that are substantively-important but also politically and electorally-viable? I don’t know the answers to these questions in regards to Biden, Fischer, Harris or virtually any other Democratic politician. I genuinely don’t know--remember that many of the nation’s landmark civil rights provisions were signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, who was not known as a leading progressive voice on racial issues before he became president.
Thanks for reading.
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