The police have never been more funded

There's an odd mirror universe that exists in the minds of openly racist commenters on Twitter and Nextdoor and, I guess, also in the minds of the elected leadership of most cities, that assumes we don't spend enough money on cops.  I don't know what can be done about that anymore. I mean you can plainly point out that they do, in fact, live in a mirror universe. But they aren't going to listen to you.  Police funding can only go up. If you are in politics that is the only way the crank turns. 

The effort to funnel federal COVID relief dollars toward law enforcement began less than a year after protests in 2020 in response to George Floyd’s murder made “defund the police” a national rallying cry. More than 20 cities took action to reduce police budgets on the heels of that movement, though many have failed to follow through on those cuts.

As the midterm elections approach, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be competing to see which party can be the most outspokenly pro-police. Republicans have blamed Democrats for recent increases in violent crime, which they say are a result of reduced police budgets—though, in reality, there appears to be no correlation between crime rates and law enforcement funding. Biden and leading Democrats have disputed claims that they want to “defund the police,” holding up the ARPA funds given to law enforcement as proof.

Amid the current political debate, “Republicans have easily, barely lifting a finger, pushed Democrats into an ‘anti-police’ corner,” Kay Whitlock, co-author of the new book “Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform,” said in an interview with The Appeal. “The result is that denunciation of ‘defund the police’ as a strategy and slogan has taken root among mainstream Democratic Party politicians.”  

But Biden and top Democrats are now going beyond denouncing the “defund” slogan and are calling to substantially increase funding for law enforcement.

Of course none of that will mean anything come this fall when Republicans are sure to re-take Congress all the while hooting at the top of their lungs that Joe Biden, who just shifted $350 billion originally meant to protect people from the ravages of a pandemic over to newly aggressive efforts to lock them in jail, is somehow trying to "defund the police." 

Probably "The Left" is to blame.