Republicans sell politics like selling cars

In one of the early scenes in the Coen Brothers’ 1996 film “Fargo,” car salesman (and central figure) Jerry Lundegaard has an exchange with an irate customer and his wife about the unwanted installation of TruCoat on the car they ordered. Here’s part of the exchange, the video for which is linked above:

CUSTOMER
We sat here right in this room and went over this and over this!

JERRY
Yah, but that TruCoat –

CUSTOMER
I sat right here and said I didn’t want no TruCoat!

JERRY
Yah, but I’m sayin’, that TruCoat, you don’t get it and you get oxidization problems. It’ll cost you a heck of lot more’n five hunnert –

CUSTOMER
You’re sittin’ here, you’re talkin’ in circles! You’re talkin’ like we didn’t go over this already!

JERRY
Yah, but this TruCoat –

Not surprisingly, as the scene ends, the salesman has worn down the customer by sticking to and repeating his agenda, and the customer grudgingly pays for something he did not want. This sales tactic is very similar to the Republican Party’s successful use of repetition in the political arena to get what they want, even when most of us do not agree with it.

Americans like their police functional, not defunded

“Defund the Police” was a horrible slogan from the get-go. First, after widespread negative reaction, many of the folks on the far left who originated and shared the slogan early in 2020 later backtracked, saying “it doesn’t really mean what it says.” If true, that of course demonstrates that this plain three-word slogan was a lousy one to begin with. Second, “Defund the Police” fed into a false, long-running Republican narrative that Democrats are somehow “soft on crime.” Feeding the other side’s negative narrative about you is something politicians, political parties and organizations should never want to do.

Now comes further proof that the liberal “Defund the Police” slogan, which was rejected by presidential candidate Joe Biden and the mainstream Democratic Party before and after the 2020 elections, was wrong-headed: a new poll from the reputable Pew Research Center which shows that a growing number of Americans want more, not less (or no) spending for police. Some of Pew’s findings are:

–The share of adults who say spending on policing in their area should be increased is now 47%, up from 31% in June 2020. This includes 21% who say funding for their local police should be increased a lot, up from 11% who said this last summer.

–Support for reducing spending on police has fallen significantly: 15% of adults now say spending should be decreased, down from 25% in 2020. And only 6% now advocate decreasing spending a lot, down from 12% who said this last year.

–The share of Democrats who say funding for local police should be decreased has fallen markedly – from 41% in 2020 to 25% today. By comparison, the share of Republicans who prefer less spending – which was already quite low – has moved incrementally lower. Growing shares of Republicans and Democrats alike now say police funding should be increased in their area.