Another Defunder Says She’s Changed

Another Defunder Says She’s Changed



Democrats prepare to bet on short voter memories.


How soon is too soon for Democrats to run candidates who supported the bloody police-defunding movement that cost so many lives in the early 2020s? An Aug. 11 primary in a Midwestern swing state will be a key test of voter tolerance for the recklessness of the radical left. Democratic socialist and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong said on Fox News today that she no longer wants to abolish the U.S. Senate and that if elected governor she can’t and won’t defund the police. Wisconsin voters may not be reassured given the state legislator’s recent history of positions that she hasn’t entirely repudiated.
Matt Brown, Anthony Izaguirre and Scott Bauer report for the Associated Press:
“I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police,” Hong said in a 2020 social media post after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A year later, while serving in the State Assembly, Hong again posted about Blake, writing: “Police exist to uphold white supremacy. Defund then abolish. Reform can’t be an option.”
The AP reporters note that as a candidate for this year’s election Ms. Hong has “softened her tone while not disavowing her past statements.” The AP has more from a Democratic primary debate this week:
“The governor cannot defund the police and I’m not here to govern by slogan,” Hong said. “I’m here to make sure that I am the governor that is most serious about public safety, and that means investing in the things that we know prevent crimes.”
If we learned anything from the horrific increase in killings that attended the rise of the defunding movement in 2020, it is that crime is prevented when well-funded police forces are encouraged to enforce laws and prosecutors are willing and able to take violent offenders off the streets. Yet Ms. Hong’s new position is still premised on the false belief that crime is mainly discouraged not by vigorous law enforcement but by government spending on social programs.

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