G.O.P. Scrambles to Respond to Public Demands for Police Overhaul

[Zorro]

Republicans have been startled by the extent to which public opinion has shifted in recent days after the killings of unarmed black Americans by the police and the protests that have followed.

Congressional Republicans, caught flat-footed by an election-year groundswell of public support for overhauling policing in America to address systemic racism, are struggling to coalesce around a legislative response.

Having long fashioned themselves as the party of law and order, Republicans have been startled by the speed and extent to which public opinion has shifted under their feet in recent days after the killings of unarmed black Americans by the police and the protests that have followed. The abrupt turn has placed them on the defensive.

Adding to their challenge, President Trump has offered only an incendiary response, repeatedly invoking “law and order,” calling for military and police crackdowns on protesters, promoting conspiracy theories, and returning time and again to the false claim that Democrats agitating for change are simply bent on defunding police departments.

On Tuesday, Republicans on Capitol Hill rushed to distance themselves from that approach, publicly making clear that they would lay out their own legislation and refraining from attacking a sweeping Democratic bill unveiled this week aimed at combating racial bias and excessive use of force by the police. The measure, which House Democrats plan to push through this month, would make it easier to track, prosecute and punish police misconduct, ban chokeholds and restrict the use of deadly force by officers, as well as condition federal grants on anti-bias training and other practices to combat racial profiling and discrimination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/us/politics/republicans-police-reform.html

[uponit7771]

1. kGOP reply; "...the police should beat more white people until they let police kill more blacks !!"

[Iliyah]

2. Smoke and mirrors . . .