Senate Democrats will be presenting a proposed resolution in their legislative chamber next week that, if approved, would condemn — and distance the Senate from — calls to defund federal law enforcement teams from figures like Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Greene has even sold merchandise promoting such an idea, and Trump has posted about the concept on Truth Social, his knock-off social media site. It’s certainly ironic, one might say, for public figures like Greene and Trump to be literally promoting a plan to defund law enforcement operations while complaining about overstated ambitions for the same sort of thing from Democrats. Many Democrats have been very forward about putting funds into and support behind law enforcement, including in areas like community-oriented police work.
According to a recent letter signed by Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the planned resolution was set to say that the Senate “condemns calls to “defund” the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation” and “rejects partisan attempts by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to degrade public trust in Federal law enforcement agencies for attempted political or legal benefit.” Others who have pointed out the gap between the idea that Republicans are generally united behind police and what the party is actually doing include House Democratic figures like Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), who actually has multiple family members with history in law enforcement. (There was also former Rep. Val Demings, a Florida Democrat.)
Just in Trump and his closest allies’ support for participants in the Capitol riot there’s also a rejection of police’s best interest. Many of those who the former president and figures like Greene seem so eager to support were specifically accused of violently attacking cops, and yet, Trump has gone so far as to repeatedly call for the mass release of detainees whose cases originate with the attack on the Capitol. Greene helped lead a visit to a D.C. jail where riot participants have been held and has helped promote the narrative they’ve received unfair treatment, as has Tucker Carlson of Fox News with conspicuously cherry-picked footage from around the Capitol. Elsewhere, some police have also questioned Republican gun proposals like the concealed carry without a permit recently signed into law in Florida, meaning residents will be able to covertly carry firearms without that additional level of oversight from the government.
