Not everyone, especially mainstream Democrats, are going to agree with Jessica Pishko on this one. In Liberties, she argues that it was the Democrats who “built Trump’s army”. It was Joe Biden, she claims, who built up the very law enforcement regime that Trump is now weaponizing. So, in Pishko’s mind, the Democrats have as much responsibility for the Mad Max police state which Trump is now unleashing now on America.
Here are the 5 takeaways in our conversation with Pishko:
* Democrats invested in police despite lack of support: According to Pishko, Democrats under Biden significantly invested in law enforcement (adding 100,000 police officers), but this did not translate into police support for Democrats. She argues police overwhelmingly supported Trump in both elections despite these investments.
* Police unions backed Trump: Police unions, which traditionally didn't endorse presidential candidates, explicitly supported Trump in his campaigns. Pishko finds this paradoxical since Republicans typically don't support unions, while Democrats (like Biden) protected police pensions and increased funding.
* "Defund the police" aftermath: Pishko suggests the 2020 protests led to a backlash where police became more aligned with Trump. She argues Biden's attempt to distance himself from "defund the police" by increasing funding didn't win police support but may have alienated progressive supporters.
* Reduced oversight under Trump: Pishko claims Trump has removed checks on police power, citing examples of him pardoning convicted police officers and ending Department of Justice investigations into police brutality. She believes oversight will now need to come from local and state levels.
* Structural challenges to police reform: Pishko argues that the structure of policing itself resists reform, pointing to examples like the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department where, despite multiple oversight mechanisms, problems persist. She notes that Black officers are leaving the profession, suggesting systemic issues that individual "good officers" cannot overcome.
Jessica Pishko is a journalist and lawyer with a JD from Harvard Law School and an MFA from Columbia University. She has been reporting on the criminal legal system for a decade, with a focus on the political power of sheriffs since 2016. In addition to her newsletter Posse Comitatus, her writings have been featured in The New York Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The Appeal, Slate, and Democracy Docket. She has been awarded journalism fellowships from the Pulitzer Center and Type Investigations and was a 2022 New America Fellow. A longtime Texas resident, she currently lives with her family in North Carolina.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
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