Democrats’ ‘Defund the Police’ Problem Is Back

After “defund the police” sparked a political backlash in 2020, Democratic candidates largely stopped using the slogan, but the movement behind it has hardly gone away.

Before you can defund the police, you first have to convince the public that the police themselves are the problem.

In New York City, that is precisely what the Democratic Socialists of America are trying to do. They have turned a federal immigration shooting into a campaign against the Big Apple’s own police department.

On Oct. 8, ICE agents shot and wounded Oscar Belgal during an attempted arrest in the Marble Hill section of Manhattan. Belgal had a prior conviction for grand larceny and was facing a separate drug charge. His 5-year-old son was in the car.

The NYPD had no role in the operation. Its officers arrived afterward and rushed Belgal to the hospital.

But that did not prevent the socialists from seizing on the incident to bash New York’s finest. Their response? Demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani fire Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Seventeen socialist elected officials and candidates called on Tisch to end police assistance to ICE and disband the Strategic Response Group or lose her job. The group is a specialized NYPD unit deployed to shootings, major disturbances, large demonstrations, and other emergencies across the city.

The socialists accused NYPD officers of improperly cooperating with ICE and mistreating protesters afterward. But allegations of misconduct are not proof of wrongdoing, much less justification for dismantling an entire police unit.

Among those clamoring for Tisch’s removal was Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic congressional nominee who won her primary with Mamdani’s backing.

Think about that. Police officers rush to help a man shot by federal agents, and the socialists respond by demanding the removal of their commissioner.

The timing makes their demands even more extraordinary. Just two days before the shooting, the NYPD announced that the first nine months of 2026 had seen the fewest murders, shooting incidents, and shooting victims in the city’s recorded history. Major crime fell 6.6%.

Apparently, even record-low crime is not enough to satisfy the socialist Left.

To his credit, Mamdani has refused to fire Tisch. But he has stood by his longstanding pledge to dismantle the Strategic Response Group and ordered a review of NYPD use-of-force policies.

The DSA’s long-term ambitions go well beyond dismantling specialized police units.

Its national program, published this year, calls for demilitarizing police departments, weakening police unions, and redirecting police funding to public services as steps toward “fully abolishing the police and prison system.”

That is the socialists’ own stated position.

Mamdani himself once described the NYPD as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and called for defunding it. By the time he ran for mayor, he was assuring voters he had no intention of doing so.

That change in public posture is not confined to New York. Across the country, some Democrats who once embraced defunding are now distancing themselves from it, even as socialist organizations continue to demand cuts.

In Los Angeles, the local DSA chapter has endorsed mayoral candidate Nithya Raman. She called for defunding the police in 2020 but now says the city cannot afford to lose more officers. The local DSA chapter still supports her and continues to advocate reducing the police force.

In Michigan, Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed once backed redirecting police funding to other services but now rejects the defund label. Democratic congressional candidate Will Lawrence, a former DSA member, has also distanced himself from his earlier support for defunding.

Perhaps their views have genuinely changed. Or perhaps they have simply learned that “defund the police” is not a winning campaign message. Either way, voters deserve to know whether Democratic candidates will oppose their allies’ demands to cut police budgets and dismantle police units.

With the midterms just weeks away, Democratic candidates may have dropped the slogan, but their socialist allies have not abandoned the cause.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

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