Does she have some of the answers?

I mean, it’d be good to have a few answers lined up before outright dissolving law enforcement.

This is the second time in less than 12 hours that a CNN anchor has asked her an eminently predictable question about how she plans to keep civilized society from breaking down in a city of 400,000 people only to have her punt. At least she admitted here that she doesn’t know; this morning her response was to mumble some dorm-room cant about how dialing 911 is a form of privilege.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer stumps Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender: “we don't have all the answers" on who responds to violent crime without police pic.twitter.com/8jXo91uXZL

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 8, 2020

It makes me laugh that the entire national Democratic establishment is having to scramble to counterprogram this idiot and her colleagues on the City Council because they took their woke radicalism a little too seriously. The nominee did it:

Do you support defunding the police?@JoeBiden: "No, I don't support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness." pic.twitter.com/HjaNymKdZu

— Norah O'Donnell 🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) June 8, 2020

One of his new shortlisters for VP did it:

In the wake of cries for police reform following the killing of George Floyd, Atlanta Mayor @KeishaBottoms says defunding and dismantling the police force is not "the solution in Atlanta." https://t.co/JKPOHzCOOj pic.twitter.com/9OqGkULAPn

— CNN (@CNN) June 8, 2020

Another shortlister for VP danced around the issue, making the case for moving some of the police’s funding to social services, mental-heath agencies, and so, but stopping well short of abolition:

Sen. @KamalaHarris says “we need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety” because “we have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead” of allocating resources to other services such as education and housing. https://t.co/mjKRxEI2Yb pic.twitter.com/mRBMqt292J

— The View (@TheView) June 8, 2020

The Speaker of the House also danced away, not wanting to antagonize progressives by slamming the idea while also clearly not wanting to antagonize the other 90 percent of the country by endorsing it:

On if they support Defund the Police movement, @speakerpelosi and @RepKarenBass don’t say directly but say they have more legislation coming that deals with “jobs and justice”

Pelosi says they need to “rebalance some of our funding” and have those debates at the local level

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) June 8, 2020

Trump ended up converting the turnover by the City Council into an easy lay-up during one of his own appearances today:

President Trump: "We won't be defunding our police. We won't be dismantling our police. We won't be disbanding our police. We won't be ending our police force in a city."

Full video here: https://t.co/QPMU46TZvy pic.twitter.com/reFF89rRbG

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 8, 2020

CNN reported yesterday that early last week he wanted 10,000 active-duty troops deployed to American cities. To put that in perspective, by next month we’ll be down to 8,600 in Afghanistan. Trump and Mark Milley reportedly had “tense words” about the need for regular troops given that the violence was already in decline at the time: “A second defense official said Milley strongly felt the threshold — informally described as dire circumstances — for calling in active duty troops could not be met, opening the door to whether such a potential presidential order would be legal.” By Friday public support for using regular troops to supplement police had dropped from 55/30 the week before to 42/48, although a second poll found support at 52/47 for using the military against violent protests.

A fascinating what-if: How would it have played politically if Trump had deployed the troops over Milley’s resistance? Bear in mind that the protests were more peaceful last week. If they had remained that way during a deployment, Trump would have said his show of force had scared the rioters straight. Maybe his polls would have soared. Or maybe a show of “soft” martial law would have antagonized protesters, leading to more unrest. Or maybe the public would have found the gesture scary and heavy-handed notwithstanding the pacifying effect it had. Whatever the answer, not deploying them was the right call. I’m glad Trump listened to his advisors.

We’re not going to disband or defund the police (outside Minneapolis, I mean) but reform is a whole other question. Some of these departments do need reform. Lots of it. I’ll leave you with these two clips.

Some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis found themselves stranded after recent protests: The tires of their cars had been slashed.

Many assumed protesters were to blame. But videos reveal a different culprit: the police. https://t.co/SGYS5nXPFq pic.twitter.com/HH6uygLgoI

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) June 8, 2020

Buffalo police officers applauded by their colleagues as they leave the courthouse pic.twitter.com/t9DGC07ijZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 6, 2020