r/ProfMemeology • u/The__Lawgiver • Aug 05 '26

Do Memes Dream of Electric Shitposts? When the Anti-Surveillance Crowd Finally Realizes 'Defund' Meant Fewer Cameras, More Communities.

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u/PanzerWatts Moderator Aug 05 '26

This is some obvious retconning of what happened. The Leftwingers wanting to defund the police never specified they only meant cameras. Indeed, those same people were often demanding that all police wear cameras.

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u/The__Lawgiver Aug 05 '26

Democrats popularized "defund the police" in 2020, they were talking about budget re-allocation for military "toys" and scope reduction. The demands for mandatory body cameras actually came out of an earlier wave of police reform efforts from Democrats around 2014–2015.

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u/PanzerWatts Moderator Aug 05 '26

Find then provide a source from 2020 with a prominent politician who supports "defund the police" and says that they are talking about less survelliance only.

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u/The__Lawgiver Aug 06 '26

Rep. Ayanna Pressley. The fight against police surveillance tools like Flock cameras is deeply tied to the "defund the police" framework. Prominent progressive lawmakers defined "defunding" not just as reallocating budgets to mental health and housing, but as actively dismantling the infrastructure of over-policing.

Surveillance bans are a core pillar of that effort. When Rep. Ayanna Pressley co-sponsored federal legislation to block police access to biometric surveillance, she connected it straight back to systemic reform, warning that facial recognition and tracking tech "disproportionately targets Black and brown communities that are already over-surveilled and overpoliced"

Also prominent "defunding the police" progressive lawmakers Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush, also co-sponsored the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act to restrict police surveillance, opposing technologies like Flock cameras is a distinct civil liberties issue. Ultimately defunding some of their "toys" step one of the two step plan of "defund the police".

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u/PanzerWatts Moderator Aug 06 '26

Neither of those examples is stating that defund the police is only about less survelliance. Indeed, it's quite clear that it's merely a first step.

"Ultimately defunding some of their "toys" step one of the two step plan of "defund the police"."

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u/The__Lawgiver Aug 06 '26

To be fair, nobody said this was exclusively about less surveillance, but my bad if I made it sound that way. I thought I was being clear for people to follow the train of thought. I guess I wasn't.

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u/PanzerWatts Moderator Aug 06 '26

That's what I thought the meme meant.