Fund The Police

 I do not watch State of the Union Addresses. I prefer to read them, the way Thomas Jefferson intended. 

However, Biden made the call to properly fund the police. This is obviously not actually a federal issue, but moving the Democratic Party away from Twitter sloganeering was important. Overwhelming majorities of Black Americans want a professional police force properly funded and working to safeguard their lives and property. That is not incompatible for wanting police held accountable for their malevolent deeds.

I was half listening to my wife's insipid podcast with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy, two old political hacks. Their analysis of the speech was whether it would salvage Democratic hopes to avoid a midterm bloodbath. This is in keeping with the political hacks way of viewing politics, which is messaging around policy. That's what they desperately need to believe is the way politics works.

If by September, Covid is finally gone, inflation is OK and Russia has abandoned Ukraine, then it really won't matter about the messaging around a trimmed down Build Back Better bill. That very little of this is under Biden's (or the political hacks working for him) control unnerves them. It makes their jobs irrelevant.