In a social media thread on Tuesday, avowed socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) declared that the message to “defund” the police should not be repackaged “to make it palatable for largely affluent, white suburban ‘swing’ voters.”
“‘Defund’ means that Black & Brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves: schooling > police,etc,” she tweeted. “Lots of DC insiders are criticizing frontline activists over political feasibility and saying they need a new slogan. But poll-tested slogans and electoral feasibility is not the activists’ job.”
“And by the way, the fact that ppl are scrambling to repackage this whole conversation to make it palatable for largely affluent, white suburban ‘swing’ voters again points to how much more electoral & structural power these communities have relative to others,” she added.
AOC’s aim, like Barack Obama’s, is the “fundamental transformation” of America, and that means tearing down “the whole damn system.”