"We Love Our Police!"

How The Democratic Party Surrendered Moral Power Since 2020

“If we are principled first, our politics will fall in place.” - Jesse Jackson, 1988

(Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash)

The rejection of moral power sits at the center of post-election diagnoses that categorize morals as a weakness, a tragic flaw to be avoided to be seen as “tough” and “practical.” During the first Trump Administration, the Democratic Party positioned itself as the political vehicle for people concerned about the vulnerable and marginalized, who wanted the US to embody the hopes and dreams of a better country, only to operate in power and put forward a message in the form of a cynical and soulless party.

During the summer of 2020, millions of people went into the streets to protest police murder. People from all backgrounds went out and demanded an end to the policies and practices that led to them seeing a man being kneeled on until he suffocated to death. In the areas where marches took place, the Democratic Party won higher vote totals partly due to the grassroots energy stirred up by these protests. In response, during Biden's first speech to a joint session of Congress after his inauguration, President Biden called for 100,000 more police. When Senator Booker’s police reform effort hit the floor

How could this be? Surely, the people who went out into the street just the summer before would be outraged. Many of them were, but the organizations who claimed to represent them stood silent. Shortly after the elections there was a large meeting of progressive organizations which work in the electoral space. This conference featured many large national organizations and particularly effective state and local organizations. During this signature conclave, the head of an organization that specializes in mobilizing Black voters went out of his way to proclaim, “We love our police.” I was astonished. We just saw an unprecedented surge of support for a fundamental change in policing fill the coffers of just this organization. The grassroots energy saw their volunteer rolls swell to capacity. This was a key factor in the record-breaking turnout numbers everyone was here to celebrate. Nevertheless, it was clear the messages emanating from the White House were heard, and “we love our police” was the day's message. Here, we saw the Democratic Party cede the moral power they co-opted during the Floyd protests to satisfy the demands of “practical” political moderates.

---

This same pattern played out on other signature issues that energized the grassroots and fueled the Democratic Party to victory in 2020. When stories of children being separated from their parents hit mainstream outlets, people were horrified. The images of children being held in cages were galvanizing and defining everything “decent” people were opposed to under the Trump Administration. Ending Trump’s build-the-wall border policy became a rallying cry. Here again we saw this commitment tested under the Biden Administration. Early in his tenure, we saw images of Haitians being chased by border agents on horseback. This was followed by continued deportation flights for Haitians while the Biden Administration likened conditions on the ground to those of a war zone. Things didn’t get better. Before the recent elections, the Biden Administration landed on preemptively denying asylum claims from refugees who couldn’t declare at a port of entry using a phone app. Once again, we saw Democrats sacrifice their moral power to satisfy the demands of “practical” political moderates.

Even on the most fundamental claim to moral legitimacy, democracy, we saw the Democratic Party cede moral power. Democracy isn’t simply a synonym for elections. It includes the right to free assembly, free speech, freedom of association, and the right to protest. In the year since the genocide in Gaza began, we saw the Democratic Party undercut these rights in the name of “containing” protests against Israel's actions of mass violence. This move against the students was foreshadowed by the persecution of activists who assembled, protested, and opposed Cop City in Atlanta. Weeleeaunee Forest Protectors saw elected leaders in the Democratic Party at the local, state, and federal level all ignore their demands for democratic input in their plans to build a police training facility and have prosecutors target them with RICO and terrorism charges after having one of their colleagues killed in cold blood. This approach to civil dissent was then replicated on college campuses across the country when students decided to occupy university space to demand their institutions divest from the war-making enterprises supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Many of these schools were led by self-professed liberals in blue cities and states. It did not matter; students were met by police regardless. Soon, we saw national leaders like Nancy Pelosi proclaiming these protests as a form of “foreign interference,” and then-candidate Kamala Harris also denounced protests as hateful and antisemitic despite the presence of many Jewish people opposed to the actions of Israel as well. Here, again, we saw the Democratic Party cede moral power.

Naturally, there wouldn’t have been any protests concerning Palestine if not for Biden’s decision to “bear hug” Israel as they launched their campaign against the people of Palestine. Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan cost him political support, but it was the right thing to do; in his decision to support the people in Ukraine, he won back a lot of the elite support, but his decision to leave Afghanistan lost him. In this dynamic, with a confident and righteous self-image, Biden approached the policy to “bear hug” Israel in their policies after October 7th. As the devastation of the Israeli assault mounted, and it became abundantly clear that the government utilized US arms to continue its policy of ethnic cleansing, the government contorted itself over and over again to justify breaking the written laws to continue to support them. Where Biden began his presidency withdrawing soldiers stationed in Afghanistan as a de facto policy of permanent occupation, the end of his tenure saw him fueling a nightmarish mirror version in Palestine. The moral power earned through his decision in Afghanistan was once again ceded in the end through his support for the genocide of Palestine. 

We must create an opposition movement with legitimate moral power to emerge from this moment of loss with a different and more effective politics. As Jesse Jackson pointed out in 1988, if we follow our principles politics will come into place. We have seen an entire professional apparatus emerge around the Democratic Party, which is dedicated to pushing the party which proclaims itself as a champion of people’s rights when it is out of power into one serving as a vehicle that looks only to polls for guidance when it can affect change at a structural level. This approach, which holds the power of principles and the power of morals in contempt when it doesn’t ignore them outright, has failed time and time again. It is time to demand a radical restructuring, which has seen the power of principle co-opted only to be muzzled into one that truly values and recognizes the people that fuel them.