vox--2020-09-04--Why Mulan’s “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” became a pump-up playlist must-have

The soundtrack of Disney ’ s 1998 Mulan is full of gems .
There ’ s the lilting and plaintive “ Reflection , ” an I-want song that ’ s developed a second life as a coming-out anthem .
There ’ s the campy burlesque of “ A Girl Worth Fighting For , ” and the impossible-to-stop-humming “ Honor to Us All.
” But perhaps most iconic is the Rocky-esque training montage song “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You , ” which blares out as Mulan and her army bros are transformed from a bunch of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warriors in two minutes flat .
On “ Let ’ s get down to business , ” they can ’ t even heft their staffs convincingly , but look at them go !
By the time they get to that final “ mysterious as the dark side of the moon , ” they ’ re running confidently through storms of arrows and splitting stone blocks with a single blow !
“ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” scores a training montage that was indelibly engraved into the minds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it holds a special place in the culture .
When I was in high school in the early ’ 00s , every single girl ’ s sports team at my school had “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” on its pump-up playlist .
Star Wars ’ Daisy Ridley had it on hers when she was prepping for the action shoots in The Force Awakens .
If you ’ re a millennial or younger , there ’ s a fair chance you know someone who has it on their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” was essentially “ The Eye of the Tiger ” for every captain of the junior varsity field hockey team circa 2004 .
“ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” does not appear in Disney ’ s live-action Mulan , which is not a musical .
( One character does quote a line from the song , and there ’ s also an instrumental version of “ Reflection ” playing in the background of some scenes . )
But the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look back at the animated classic — and one of the most enduring and beloved offerings in its celebrated soundtrack .
So let ’ s get down to business and figure out what makes “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” work so well .
The Mulan soundtrack was originally meant to be scored by Stephen Schwartz , the Broadway composer and lyricist who would go on to score Wicked , and his plans included a comedy song titled “ We ’ ll Make a Man Out of You.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dreamworks to provide the score for Prince of Egypt , and left Disney scrambling to fill his shoes .
Reportedly , Schwartz ’ s “ We ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” has no relation to the “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” in the finished Mulan .
To replace Schwartz , Disney did some matchmaking .
The lyricist David Zippel had worked for Disney before , writing lyrics for Alan Menken ’ s Hercules score .
Composer Matthew Wilder was a young up-and-comer that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a Canadian theater festival .
Disney put the pair together and told them to get to work .
Neither Zippel nor Wilder had any real familiarity with Chinese music , which would be basically par for the course when it came to the cultural expertise of Mulan ’ s creative team : This was Disney ’ s first movie about China , and it was made almost entirely by Westerners .
Nevertheless , the pair began researching Asian military cadences and pulling sounds from a library of Asian samples .
In 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You , ” he was aiming for the sound of a “ Chinese marching American band.
” Zippel and Wilder didn ’ t entirely land the Chinese part of the sound mix they were going for , says Charlie Harding , a songwriter and one of the hosts of Vox ’ s Switched on Pop podcast .
Chinese drums are traditionally skin drums , but “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” opens with a Yankee Doodle-ish military drum roll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s such a musical mismatch to the culture it ’ s describing , ” Harding says .
The marching band element absolutely comes through , however , and Harding says that ’ s part of what makes the song work so well as a pre-sports ritual .
“ A marching band is what you hear before a football game , right ?
” he says .
“ It ’ s preparing you for battle , for conflict.
” And “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pump-up song “ The Eye of the Tiger ” : its syncopation .
“ It ’ s very Broadway , ” Harding says , “ but there ’ s really great inflection.
” That opening instrumental line of “ Eye of the Tiger ” carefully matches the stressed notes of the melody to the downbeats of the rhythm set by the pulsing bass guitar : “ BAUM !
Baum baum BAUM !
Baum baum BAUM !
Baum baum bauuuuuuum.
” That ’ s what makes the song so inspiring it that it changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harding , a more classic arrangement would have put the notes of the melody between the downbeats — say , “ Baum !
[ downbeat ] Baum baum baum !
[ downbeat ] ” — but that version of the song would never have had the power to push Rocky up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum .
It would lie flat .
In “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You , ” think of that opening line , and the way the stressed syllables fall with such satisfying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ melody : “ Let ’ s get down to business / to defeat the Huns.
” You can also sing the line with the melody arranged between the beats , as “ Let ’ s get down [ downbeat ] to business ” — but that would be way less fun .
That version of the song wouldn ’ t sound inspiring at all .
“ The syllabic emphasis matches the rhythmic emphasis , ” says Harding , “ and the in-between words create this propulsive momentum .
It ’ s a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that develops rhythmic interest.
” And because of that syncopation , when you hear “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You , ” you feel immediately excited and energized .
Or at least , Disney executives did when they heard it : They ended up approving the very first draft of the song that Zippel and Wilder brought in to them .
Once the movie came out , a generation of girl ’ s sports teams had the same response .
So now , as Mulan makes her live-action American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Star Wars has to pay her training montage song all due respect .
Looks like “ I ’ ll Make a Man Out of You ” really does have all the strength of a great typhoon .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

The soundtrack of Disney’s 1998 Mulan is full of gems. There’s the lilting and plaintive “Reflection,” an I-want song that’s developed a second life as a coming-out anthem. There’s the campy burlesque of “A Girl Worth Fighting For,” and the impossible-to-stop-humming “Honor to Us All.”
But perhaps most iconic is the Rocky-esque training montage song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” which blares out as Mulan and her army bros are transformed from a bunch of incompetent neophytes into fully prepared and unstoppable warriors in two minutes flat. On “Let’s get down to business,” they can’t even heft their staffs convincingly, but look at them go! By the time they get to that final “mysterious as the dark side of the moon,” they’re running confidently through storms of arrows and splitting stone blocks with a single blow! “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” scores a training montage that was indelibly engraved into the minds of a generation, and as such, it holds a special place in the culture.
When I was in high school in the early ’00s, every single girl’s sports team at my school had “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” on its pump-up playlist. Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley had it on hers when she was prepping for the action shoots in The Force Awakens. If you’re a millennial or younger, there’s a fair chance you know someone who has it on their workout playlist, too. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” was essentially “The Eye of the Tiger” for every captain of the junior varsity field hockey team circa 2004.
“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” does not appear in Disney’s live-action Mulan, which is not a musical. (One character does quote a line from the song, and there’s also an instrumental version of “Reflection” playing in the background of some scenes.) But the new movie offers us a perfect chance to look back at the animated classic — and one of the most enduring and beloved offerings in its celebrated soundtrack. So let’s get down to business and figure out what makes “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” work so well.
The Mulan soundtrack was originally meant to be scored by Stephen Schwartz, the Broadway composer and lyricist who would go on to score Wicked, and his plans included a comedy song titled “We’ll Make a Man Out of You.” But then Schwartz got poached by Dreamworks to provide the score for Prince of Egypt, and left Disney scrambling to fill his shoes. Reportedly, Schwartz’s “We’ll Make a Man Out of You” has no relation to the “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” in the finished Mulan.
To replace Schwartz, Disney did some matchmaking. The lyricist David Zippel had worked for Disney before, writing lyrics for Alan Menken’s Hercules score. Composer Matthew Wilder was a young up-and-comer that Disney’s talent scouts had spotted at a Canadian theater festival. Disney put the pair together and told them to get to work.
Neither Zippel nor Wilder had any real familiarity with Chinese music, which would be basically par for the course when it came to the cultural expertise of Mulan’s creative team: This was Disney’s first movie about China, and it was made almost entirely by Westerners. Nevertheless, the pair began researching Asian military cadences and pulling sounds from a library of Asian samples. In 2018, Wilder told Entertainment Weekly that with “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” he was aiming for the sound of a “Chinese marching American band.”
Zippel and Wilder didn’t entirely land the Chinese part of the sound mix they were going for, says Charlie Harding, a songwriter and one of the hosts of Vox’s Switched on Pop podcast. Chinese drums are traditionally skin drums, but “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” opens with a Yankee Doodle-ish military drum roll on contemporary Western snare drums. “It’s such a musical mismatch to the culture it’s describing,” Harding says.
The marching band element absolutely comes through, however, and Harding says that’s part of what makes the song work so well as a pre-sports ritual. “A marching band is what you hear before a football game, right?” he says. “It’s preparing you for battle, for conflict.”
And “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” also shares a key trait with its fellow pump-up song “The Eye of the Tiger”: its syncopation. “It’s very Broadway,” Harding says, “but there’s really great inflection.”
The opening instrumental riff of “Eye of the Tiger” has a melodic line playing over the rhythm set by the pulsing bass guitar: “BAUM! Baum baum BAUM! Baum baum BAUM! Baum baum bauuuuuuum.” What makes it so propulsively inspiring it that it changes Rocky’s life is the way the notes hit off beat. According to Harding, a more classic arrangement would have put the notes of the melody on all downbeats — say, “Baum! Baum baum baum!” — but that version of the song would never have had the power to push Rocky up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. It would lie flat.
In “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” think of that opening line, and the way the stressed syllables fall with such satisfying precision onto downbeats of the main melody, while the syllables in between skim over the downbeats like they’re not there: “Let’s get down to business / to defeat the Huns.” You can also sing the line with the melody arranged precisely on the beats at one inflection, as “Let’s get down to business” — but that would be way less fun. That version of the song wouldn’t sound inspiring at all.“The syllabic emphasis matches the rhythmic emphasis,” says Harding, “and the in-between words create this propulsive momentum. It’s a very clever way of matching words to rhythm that develops rhythmic interest.”
And because of that syncopation, when you hear “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” you feel immediately excited and energized. Or at least, Disney executives did when they heard it: They ended up approving the very first draft of the song that Zippel and Wilder brought in to them.
Once the movie came out, a generation of girl’s sports teams had the same response. So now, as Mulan makes her live-action American debut on Disney+, even Rei from Star Wars has to pay her training montage song all due respect. Looks like “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” really does have all the strength of a great typhoon.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the relationship between the downbeats and the melodic line in the syncopated openings of “Eye of the Tiger” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.”


vox--2020-09-04--The debate over whether unrest will help Trump win, explained

As demonstrations against police violence have recently been accompanied by unrest and violence in cities like Kenosha and Portland , many in the political world have had the same thought : This could help Trump ’ s campaign .
Most prominently , the Atlantic ’ s George Packer declared “ This Is How Biden Loses ” in an article last week .
But this isn ’ t limited to punditry : Axios ’ s Mike Allen reported that “ Democrats close to Joe Biden increasingly fear the looting and violence in cities could help President Trump.
” Meanwhile , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Ellen Almer Durston and Politico ’ s Natasha Korecki interviewed Wisconsin voters and left with similar takeaways .
The Trump campaign clearly saw an opportunity to shake up the race — Republicans made the unrest a major theme of their convention last week , blaming Democrat-controlled states and cities and falsely accusing Biden of wanting to defund the police ; Trump himself traveled to Kenosha on Tuesday to hammer home the point .
The Biden campaign just as clearly took these worries seriously .
Biden did an interview with MSNBC last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech in Pittsburgh Monday forcefully condemning the violence and putting the blame on Trump for dividing the country .
His campaign is now spending $ 45 million to air an ad featuring Biden condemning rioting and looting in swing states ; Biden made his own trip to Kenosha on Thursday .
But the idea that these recent events will necessarily benefit Trump has been disputed .
Indeed , many argue that tumult in the country could instead hurt Trump because it ’ s unfolding under his watch as the incumbent president .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bet , and they ’ re emphasizing that theme in their ad . )
These skeptics also questioned whether enough voters would change their minds over this rather than the Covid-19 pandemic , the economy , or anything else in Trump ’ s record .
This debate largely unfolded amid a lack of good recent polling data , but a round of new polls released Wednesday and Thursday suggest that , on a national level , there ’ s no sign that the unrest has significantly helped Trump .
Biden currently holds about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race may have tightened by about a point , though even there it ’ s unclear whether that would be due to the unrest , a bounce from the Republican convention , or simply voters starting to wake up to the reality that the election is just two months away .
That ’ s an encouraging sign for Democrats .
Still , it ’ s worth keeping in mind that this race will be decided in the swing states — including two , Wisconsin and Minnesota , that have featured high-profile incidents of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some rioting and looting ( even though most Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful ) .
The recent swing-state polling has also been mostly good for Biden — on average he has low- or mid-single-digit leads in key states .
But so long as the polls show anything other than a Biden swing-state landslide , raw memories of 2016 ensure that Democratic nervousness will persist .
The fear among particularly older Democrats that the unrest will help Trump is based partly on gut instinct and partly on historical memory — a sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ play ” politically .
The fears often hark back to the election season of 1967- ’ 68 , which was marked by riots across urban America , some of which were in response to police actions and some of which were in response to Martin Luther King Jr. ’ s April 1968 assassination .
Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon responded to all this by campaigning on “ law and order , ” and he won .
The incumbent , Lyndon Johnson , saw his popularity plummet and ended up deciding not to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was his vice president , Hubert Humphrey .
Nixon ’ s win kicked off a run in which Republicans won five out of six presidential elections , giving them control of the White House for 20 of the next 24 years .
So naturally , Democrats dispirited by defeat spent a lot of time looking backward and thinking about where it all went wrong .
Many of them concluded that the unrest in the late 1960s just got too out of hand — that a mostly nonviolent civil rights movement went too far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that the Democrats were punished for it at the polls , and that racial progress across the country was set back due to both backlash from white Americans and electoral victories from the Republican Party .
For instance , Rep. Jim Clyburn ( D-SC ) told Vox ’ s Emily Stewart earlier this year that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC ) , a leading 1960s civil rights group , “ got hijacked.
” He said : “ We were getting off the back of the bus , we were sitting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a sudden , we woke up one morning , and there was a rallying cry all around us , ‘ Burn baby burn.
’ ” ( Bill Clinton recently made similar comments regretting that the civil rights movement “ went a little too far ” in the direction of confrontational activist Stokely Carmichael . )
This basic narrative has long been believed by many Democrats who lived through those years , and a recent study by Princeton University political science professor Omar Wasow backs up the claim that violent unrest hurt Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in areas where rainfall prevented violent protests after King ’ s assassination to areas where such protests ensued , and found that “ violent protests likely caused a 1.5–7.9 percent shift among whites toward Republicans and tipped the [ 1968 ] election.
” Others broaden out the claim to say that more generally rising crime rates can help Republicans , as well .
New York City is filled with Democrats , but Rudy Giuliani ’ s “ tough on crime ” agenda propelled him to two terms as mayor from 1994 to 2001 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters in the United States fundamentally don ’ t trust Democrats to handle crime or restore order , and that when their fears of danger or disorder are activated , Republicans benefit .
Many Democrats adopted “ tough on crime ” policies to try and counter this .
Now , this year , polls indeed show that most Americans , while sympathetic to Black Lives Matter , do not like looting , rioting , or violent protests .
Gallup found that only 8 percent of US adults thought “ looting and property damage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justified .
Meanwhile , 33 percent said they were sympathetic with those protesters but that their actions were not justified , and 57 percent were not sympathetic to them at all , meaning a combined 90 percent thought looting and property damage were unjustified .
Finally , the worriers also point to the electoral map .
Trump is president today because he beat Hillary Clinton by a less than 1 percent margin in three states that had long voted for Democrats : Wisconsin , Michigan , and Pennsylvania .
Additionally , in nearby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winning , falling short by a margin of 1.5 percent .
Trump ’ s strength in these states was primarily attributed to his success winning over white voters who lacked college degrees .
Images of burned-out buildings in Minneapolis and Kenosha have made some Democrats fear that Trump could have success with that crucial voter base again — and that it could win him the presidency .
David Wasserman lays out the stakes pretty clearly at NBC News , arguing that if Trump does manage to recover his standing with working-class white voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the next Iowa and Ohio ” ( formerly swing states that moved strongly toward Trump ) .
But a lot of things are different now In addition to dwelling on the similarities with 1968 , it ’ s important to also look at the differences .
For one , the late 1960s riots were far bloodier than anything the US has seen this year .
For instance , 26 people died during the 1967 Newark riots , 43 died during the 1967 Detroit riots , and another 43 died during riots across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Luther King Jr. ’ s April 1968 assassination , with thousands more injured .
( This year ’ s death toll is a little over a dozen nationally in a mix of situations . )
Additionally , the election of 1968 took place 52 years ago , and both the composition of the American electorate and white Americans ’ views on racial issues have greatly changed since then .
There ’ s no reason to just assume what happens today will necessarily mirror what happened then .
Rick Perlstein , the author of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election and reelection , recently told a New York Times editor to “ stop reading Nixonland and start assigning reporters to explain what ’ s happening now , because we don ’ t yet have any idea.
” A key difference this time around is that , as Vox ’ s Matt Yglesias has written , “ Donald Trump is the president.
” It ’ s generally believed that the incumbent politician or party gets the credit or blame for events that unfold on their watch , and all this unrest is unfolding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nixon ran on a promise to restore “ law and order ” in 1968 , but when it was time for his reelection in 1972 , he claimed that he had fulfilled that promise .
Trump has tried to put the blame on Democratic mayors and governors , but “ Democratic mayors and governors ” is not a presidential candidate .
In 2016 , Trump ran on the claim that he “ alone can fix it ” — and , four years later , he evidently has not fixed it .
Interestingly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spending $ 45 million to air in swing states , he lingers for some time on images of burned-out buildings and street confrontations .
It ’ s generally been Republicans who have been most eager to spotlight such footage , but this suggests that Biden believes voters will buy his argument that he is against such things , and that Trump ’ s divisive presence in office is helping cause them .
Indeed , a new poll from YouGov found that 56 percent of Americans believed that the violence happening at protests would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that only 23 percent believed it would get worse if Biden wins .
Also , the first round of unrest started in Minneapolis and other cities back in late May after the police killing of George Floyd .
We ’ ve had months of polling data since then , which has continued to show Biden ahead nationally and in swing states ( though some argue that this was because the earlier round of destruction was relatively brief and peaceful tactics were far more prominent ) .
In fact , it was Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the government forcefully cleared protesters from Lafayette Square so Trump could take a photo op — suggesting the American public can react badly to violence from the authorities , as well .
The alleged killer of two people in Kenosha , meanwhile , is a Trump supporter .
Now , support for Black Lives Matter has dropped since its June peak , to the level it was at before Floyd ’ s death ( mainly because of lower support from white Republicans and white independents ) , and there are consistent results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But Biden , too , has made clear he condemns violent protests , and with his new ad buy he ’ s making sure swing state voters know it too .
And , per FiveThirtyEight ’ s Perry Bacon Jr. , the data suggests “ that Biden ’ s electoral prospects and the popularity of Black Lives Matter are not closely linked — at least not so far.
” Trump ’ s new focus on riots also reminds some of his ( and conservative media ’ s ) sudden obsession with a coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks before the Democratic wave in the 2018 midterms — which may suggest it ’ s a sign of desperation amid bad poll numbers rather than an ingenious plan .
And there are also the obvious considerations that there are many other things going on in the country right now , including the continuing Covid-19 pandemic and economic troubles , and that Trump has a four-year record at this point .
So how likely is it that some ugly scenes and burnt buildings in cities where the vast majority of voters don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Of course , you can go back and forth on this .
The worriers would argue that , yes , the vast majority of voters won ’ t be affected by this , but the fear is that a small number of primarily white working-class voters in key states would be , and that that could be decisive if the race tightens .
The skeptics fire back that , well , it ’ s not a close race right now .
But for some , the conversation is not primarily , or at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — it ’ s become , instead , a proxy for the question of whose side you ’ re on .
Some on the left believe that those who express concern about the electoral impact of riots are being insufficiently supportive of the protest movement , or at the very least revealing misplaced priorities at an important moment for racial justice .
For instance , a few months ago , after a Democratic data analyst tweeted about Omar Wasow ’ s research , he faced criticism on Twitter for “ anti-blackness ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shortly after fired from his job .
One activist argued on a Democratic email list that his tweet “ could be interpreted as intended to denigrate the work of the Movement for Black Lives and pin any election losses on Black lives.
” More recently , in response to the latest round of punditry on this topic , the New Republic ’ s Osita Nwanevu argued that there ’ s “ no particularly good reason to be paranoid about ” the electoral effects of “ riots specifically unless you ’ re also invested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressing concern about this topic do generally tend to be more centrist and skeptical of the left .
They also tend to believe that , on the merits , looting and rioting are bad and shouldn ’ t be downplayed or simply accepted as part of a larger racial justice movement .
They argue that leftists and media apologists for this behavior are in a bubble , and they point to the polls showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans share their own view .
But though they are correct that looting and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not seem to be correct that looting and rioting are driving a significant number of people to decide to vote for Donald Trump .
Polls taken in the aftermath of the GOP convention ( when , historically , Trump should be getting a bounce ) show Biden continuing to lead comfortably nationally and to have low- or mid-single-digit leads in key swing states .
There are still two months in which that could change — and polls did understate Trump ’ s support in a few key states in 2016 — but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not substantiate these fears .
It ’ s notable , though , that the Biden team — tasked with winning an election , not just winning arguments online — is clearly taking this very seriously .
They ’ ve devoted significant time and money to trying to rebut Trump on this issue this week .
It ’ s not clear whether this is out of an abundance of caution or whether they are genuinely concerned .
But they ’ re not taking anything for granted .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

As demonstrations against police violence have recently been accompanied by unrest and violence in cities like Kenosha and Portland, many in the political world have had the same thought: This could help Trump’s campaign.
Most prominently, the Atlantic’s George Packer declared “This Is How Biden Loses” in an article last week. But this isn’t limited to punditry: Axios’s Mike Allen reported that “Democrats close to Joe Biden increasingly fear the looting and violence in cities could help President Trump.” Meanwhile, the New York Times’s Sabrina Tavernise and Ellen Almer Durston and Politico’s Natasha Korecki interviewed Wisconsin voters and left with similar takeaways.
The Trump campaign clearly saw an opportunity to shake up the race — Republicans made the unrest a major theme of their convention last week, blaming Democrat-controlled states and cities and falsely accusing Biden of wanting to defund the police; Trump himself traveled to Kenosha on Tuesday to hammer home the point.
The Biden campaign just as clearly took these worries seriously. Biden did an interview with MSNBC last week on the topic, and delivered a speech in Pittsburgh Monday forcefully condemning the violence and putting the blame on Trump for dividing the country. His campaign is now spending $45 million to air an ad featuring Biden condemning rioting and looting in swing states; Biden made his own trip to Kenosha on Thursday.
But the idea that these recent events will necessarily benefit Trump has been disputed. Indeed, many argue that tumult in the country could instead hurt Trump because it’s unfolding under his watch as the incumbent president. (This is the Biden campaign’s bet, and they’re emphasizing that theme in their ad.) These skeptics also questioned whether enough voters would change their minds over this rather than the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy, or anything else in Trump’s record.
This debate largely unfolded amid a lack of good recent polling data, but a round of new polls released Wednesday and Thursday suggest that, on a national level, there’s no sign that the unrest has significantly helped Trump. Biden currently holds about a 7-point lead on average. The race may have tightened by about a point, though even there it’s unclear whether that would be due to the unrest, a bounce from the Republican convention, or simply voters starting to wake up to the reality that the election is just two months away.
That’s an encouraging sign for Democrats. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that this race will be decided in the swing states — including two, Wisconsin and Minnesota, that have featured high-profile incidents of police violence, massive protests, and some rioting and looting (even though most Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful).
The recent swing-state polling has also been mostly good for Biden — on average he has low- or mid-single-digit leads in key states. But so long as the polls show anything other than a Biden swing-state landslide, raw memories of 2016 ensure that Democratic nervousness will persist.
Older Democrats remember 1968
The fear among particularly older Democrats that the unrest will help Trump is based partly on gut instinct and partly on historical memory — a sense they have of how these things usually “play” politically.
The fears often hark back to the election season of 1967-’68, which was marked by riots across urban America, some of which were in response to police actions and some of which were in response to Martin Luther King Jr.’s April 1968 assassination. Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon responded to all this by campaigning on “law and order,” and he won. The incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, saw his popularity plummet and ended up deciding not to run again; the losing Democratic nominee was his vice president, Hubert Humphrey.
Nixon’s win kicked off a run in which Republicans won five out of six presidential elections, giving them control of the White House for 20 of the next 24 years. So naturally, Democrats dispirited by defeat spent a lot of time looking backward and thinking about where it all went wrong. Many of them concluded that the unrest in the late 1960s just got too out of hand — that a mostly nonviolent civil rights movement went too far in the direction of violence and destruction, that the Democrats were punished for it at the polls, and that racial progress across the country was set back due to both backlash from white Americans and electoral victories from the Republican Party.
For instance, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) told Vox’s Emily Stewart earlier this year that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leading 1960s civil rights group, “got hijacked.” He said: “We were getting off the back of the bus, we were sitting down at lunch counters, and all of a sudden, we woke up one morning, and there was a rallying cry all around us, ‘Burn baby burn.’” (Bill Clinton recently made similar comments regretting that the civil rights movement “went a little too far” in the direction of confrontational activist Stokely Carmichael.)
This basic narrative has long been believed by many Democrats who lived through those years, and a recent study by Princeton University political science professor Omar Wasow backs up the claim that violent unrest hurt Democrats electorally. Wasow compared different election results in areas where rainfall prevented violent protests after King’s assassination to areas where such protests ensued, and found that “violent protests likely caused a 1.5–7.9 percent shift among whites toward Republicans and tipped the [1968] election.”
Others broaden out the claim to say that more generally rising crime rates can help Republicans, as well. New York City is filled with Democrats, but Rudy Giuliani’s “tough on crime” agenda propelled him to two terms as mayor from 1994 to 2001. The belief here is that swing voters in the United States fundamentally don’t trust Democrats to handle crime or restore order, and that when their fears of danger or disorder are activated, Republicans benefit. Many Democrats adopted “tough on crime” policies to try and counter this.
Now, this year, polls indeed show that most Americans, while sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, do not like looting, rioting, or violent protests. Gallup found that only 8 percent of US adults thought “looting and property damage during protests on racial justice” was justified. Meanwhile, 33 percent said they were sympathetic with those protesters but that their actions were not justified, and 57 percent were not sympathetic to them at all, meaning a combined 90 percent thought looting and property damage were unjustified.
Finally, the worriers also point to the electoral map. Trump is president today because he beat Hillary Clinton by a less than 1 percent margin in three states that had long voted for Democrats: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Additionally, in nearby Minnesota, Trump came surprisingly close to winning, falling short by a margin of 1.5 percent. Trump’s strength in these states was primarily attributed to his success winning over white voters who lacked college degrees.
Images of burned-out buildings in Minneapolis and Kenosha have made some Democrats fear that Trump could have success with that crucial voter base again — and that it could win him the presidency. David Wasserman lays out the stakes pretty clearly at NBC News, arguing that if Trump does manage to recover his standing with working-class white voters, “Minnesota and Wisconsin could turn into the next Iowa and Ohio” (formerly swing states that moved strongly toward Trump).
But a lot of things are different now
In addition to dwelling on the similarities with 1968, it’s important to also look at the differences.
For one, the late 1960s riots were far bloodier than anything the US has seen this year. For instance, 26 people died during the 1967 Newark riots, 43 died during the 1967 Detroit riots, and another 43 died during riots across several cities in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s April 1968 assassination, with thousands more injured. (This year’s death toll is a little over a dozen nationally in a mix of situations.)
Additionally, the election of 1968 took place 52 years ago, and both the composition of the American electorate and white Americans’ views on racial issues have greatly changed since then. There’s no reason to just assume what happens today will necessarily mirror what happened then. Rick Perlstein, the author of the book Nixonland chronicling Nixon’s election and reelection, recently told a New York Times editor to “stop reading Nixonland and start assigning reporters to explain what’s happening now, because we don’t yet have any idea.”
A key difference this time around is that, as Vox’s Matt Yglesias has written, “Donald Trump is the president.” It’s generally believed that the incumbent politician or party gets the credit or blame for events that unfold on their watch, and all this unrest is unfolding on Trump’s watch. Richard Nixon ran on a promise to restore “law and order” in 1968, but when it was time for his reelection in 1972, he claimed that he had fulfilled that promise. Trump has tried to put the blame on Democratic mayors and governors, but “Democratic mayors and governors” is not a presidential candidate. In 2016, Trump ran on the claim that he “alone can fix it” — and, four years later, he evidently has not fixed it.
Interestingly, in the new ad that Biden is spending $45 million to air in swing states, he lingers for some time on images of burned-out buildings and street confrontations. It’s generally been Republicans who have been most eager to spotlight such footage, but this suggests that Biden believes voters will buy his argument that he is against such things, and that Trump’s divisive presence in office is helping cause them. Indeed, a new poll from YouGov found that 56 percent of Americans believed that the violence happening at protests would get worse if Trump is reelected, and that only 23 percent believed it would get worse if Biden wins.
Also, the first round of unrest started in Minneapolis and other cities back in late May after the police killing of George Floyd. We’ve had months of polling data since then, which has continued to show Biden ahead nationally and in swing states (though some argue that this was because the earlier round of destruction was relatively brief and peaceful tactics were far more prominent). In fact, it was Trump’s popularity that ended up dropping after the government forcefully cleared protesters from Lafayette Square so Trump could take a photo op — suggesting the American public can react badly to violence from the authorities, as well. The alleged killer of two people in Kenosha, meanwhile, is a Trump supporter.
Now, support for Black Lives Matter has dropped since its June peak, to the level it was at before Floyd’s death (mainly because of lower support from white Republicans and white independents), and there are consistent results that most Americans dislike violent protests. But Biden, too, has made clear he condemns violent protests, and with his new ad buy he’s making sure swing state voters know it too. And, per FiveThirtyEight’s Perry Bacon Jr., the data suggests “that Biden’s electoral prospects and the popularity of Black Lives Matter are not closely linked — at least not so far.”
Trump’s new focus on riots also reminds some of his (and conservative media’s) sudden obsession with a coming caravan of Central American migrants in the weeks before the Democratic wave in the 2018 midterms — which may suggest it’s a sign of desperation amid bad poll numbers rather than an ingenious plan.
And there are also the obvious considerations that there are many other things going on in the country right now, including the continuing Covid-19 pandemic and economic troubles, and that Trump has a four-year record at this point. So how likely is it that some ugly scenes and burnt buildings in cities where the vast majority of voters don’t live will decide the outcome?
This is a fraught conversation
Of course, you can go back and forth on this. The worriers would argue that, yes, the vast majority of voters won’t be affected by this, but the fear is that a small number of primarily white working-class voters in key states would be, and that that could be decisive if the race tightens. The skeptics fire back that, well, it’s not a close race right now.
But for some, the conversation is not primarily, or at least not entirely, about electoral efficacy — it’s become, instead, a proxy for the question of whose side you’re on.
Some on the left believe that those who express concern about the electoral impact of riots are being insufficiently supportive of the protest movement, or at the very least revealing misplaced priorities at an important moment for racial justice.
For instance, a few months ago, after a Democratic data analyst tweeted about Omar Wasow’s research, he faced criticism on Twitter for “anti-blackness” and being “tone deaf” and was shortly after fired from his job. One activist argued on a Democratic email list that his tweet “could be interpreted as intended to denigrate the work of the Movement for Black Lives and pin any election losses on Black lives.”
More recently, in response to the latest round of punditry on this topic, the New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu argued that there’s “no particularly good reason to be paranoid about” the electoral effects of “riots specifically unless you’re also invested in attacking the left.”’
Those expressing concern about this topic do generally tend to be more centrist and skeptical of the left. They also tend to believe that, on the merits, looting and rioting are bad and shouldn’t be downplayed or simply accepted as part of a larger racial justice movement. They argue that leftists and media apologists for this behavior are in a bubble, and they point to the polls showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans share their own view.
But though they are correct that looting and rioting are very unpopular, they currently do not seem to be correct that looting and rioting are driving a significant number of people to decide to vote for Donald Trump. Polls taken in the aftermath of the GOP convention (when, historically, Trump should be getting a bounce) show Biden continuing to lead comfortably nationally and to have low- or mid-single-digit leads in key swing states. There are still two months in which that could change — and polls did understate Trump’s support in a few key states in 2016 — but overall, the current polling evidence does not substantiate these fears.
It’s notable, though, that the Biden team — tasked with winning an election, not just winning arguments online — is clearly taking this very seriously. They’ve devoted significant time and money to trying to rebut Trump on this issue this week. It’s not clear whether this is out of an abundance of caution or whether they are genuinely concerned. But they’re not taking anything for granted.


vox--2020-09-04--How to be a cloud detective

How to be a cloud detective

If you ’ re standing outside and you look up , you ’ ll likely see something familiar above you : clouds !
They can be long and skinny , low and rumbly , white and fluffy , or anything in between .
But what do these different shapes and colors tell us ?
Every cloud is packed full of information , and knowing a bit about them can help you identify different types — and predict the weather .
You can see the 10 most common cloud types on this chart .
Cumulus clouds are pretty easy to spot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shape : big , fluffy , white cotton balls in the sky .
These usually mean fair weather ; when you see them , it ’ s a good day to be outside .
If you see a big blanket of clouds covering the sky , they might be altostratus — and they might mean that rain is coming .
In the video above , we explain the qualities of common cloud types and discuss some unusual ones .
Plus we share some tips about how we can all get better at decoding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s permission , you can download and print out your own cloud chart , like the one we showed in this video .
Happy cloud hunting !
This video is part of Vox ’ s first-ever week of video programming for kids .
We designed these episodes for kids ages 9 to 13 , but we hope everyone in our audience enjoys them .
If you ’ re a parent , educator , or a kid at heart , please sign up for our newsletter for updates on all of our upcoming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ podcasts to videos to new shows : http : //www.vox.com/kids Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

If you’re standing outside and you look up, you’ll likely see something familiar above you: clouds! They can be long and skinny, low and rumbly, white and fluffy, or anything in between. But what do these different shapes and colors tell us?
Every cloud is packed full of information, and knowing a bit about them can help you identify different types — and predict the weather.
You can see the 10 most common cloud types on this chart. Cumulus clouds are pretty easy to spot. They’re the classic cloud shape: big, fluffy, white cotton balls in the sky. These usually mean fair weather; when you see them, it’s a good day to be outside.
If you see a big blanket of clouds covering the sky, they might be altostratus — and they might mean that rain is coming.
In the video above, we explain the qualities of common cloud types and discuss some unusual ones. Plus we share some tips about how we can all get better at decoding clouds.
With your parent or guardian’s permission, you can download and print out your own cloud chart, like the one we showed in this video. Happy cloud hunting!
This video is part of Vox’s first-ever week of video programming for kids. We designed these episodes for kids ages 9 to 13, but we hope everyone in our audience enjoys them.
If you’re a parent, educator, or a kid at heart, please sign up for our newsletter for updates on all of our upcoming kids’ programming at Vox, from podcasts to videos to new shows: http://www.vox.com/kids


vox--2020-09-04--Democrats are running on the most progressive police reform agenda in modern American history

If you ’ re confused about where Democrats stand on policing reform , you have good reason to be .
On the one hand , protesters , activists , and professional athletes are demanding that Democrats at both a local and national level do more to address police brutality against Black Americans .
On the other , several speakers at the Republican National Convention claimed that Joe Biden and Democrats are radical police abolitionists who , as Trump himself put it , will “ defund police departments all across America ” if given power .
So what ’ s the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Democrats ’ policing agenda is not nearly as ambitious as either defund activists or Republican politicians would like them to be , it is by far the most progressive in modern American history .
The 2020 Democratic Party ’ s views on policing make the party of 2016 look regressive and the party of 2012 look almost unrecognizably backward .
“ The first thing my colleagues wanted to do to address police violence was focus on accountability , ” Rep. Rashida Tlaib ( D-MI ) tells me .
“ But the more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the more they are realizing that just holding a few bad cops accountable isn ’ t enough — this is about an entire system .
I think that ’ s a huge change.
” The most recent indication of where Democrats stand on policing is the criminal justice section of the 2020 Democratic Party platform .
As my colleague Andrew Prokop explains , party platforms are consensus documents : They use inputs from a wide range of coalition actors within the party to provide a broad summary of what the party stands for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country toward .
And research has shown that , in 25 years , both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress voted in accordance with their platforms more than 80 percent of the time .
The first thing that stands out about the Democrats ’ 2020 criminal justice platform is its framing , which is unequivocal about the state of policing in America : In terms of concrete policy proposals , the bulk of the platform ’ s policing agenda focuses on preventing officers from abusing their power and holding them accountable when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 — which received unanimous support among House Democrats but has since been stymied in the Senate — it proposes policies like reining in qualified immunity , banning chokeholds , developing stricter use-of-force standards , creating a national registry of officer misconduct , and limiting no-knock warrants .
It also outlines specific mechanisms for holding state and local departments accountable to these reforms , namely tying federal law enforcement funding to implementation of these measures and strengthening the Department of Justice ’ s ability to investigate police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often result in concrete reforms ) .
“ The Democratic Party is a big tent , which means that different coalitions tend to differ on most issues , ” says Ed Chung , vice president for criminal justice reform at the Center for American Progress .
“ But what Democrats of all stripes tend to agree on is police accountability as well as improving and bettering police officers through things like better training.
” But the bigger ideological change in the Democratic Party is the openness to a new approach to public safety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a model focused more on investment and public health interventions .
The 2020 platform specifically calls for “ reorienting our public safety approach toward prevention and away from over-policing ” in order to “ prevent law enforcement from becoming unnecessarily entangled in the everyday lives of Americans.
” Democrats propose two ways of doing this : First , by decriminalizing marijuana use and diverting those struggling with substance abuse away from the criminal justice system and into treatment-based interventions .
Second , by investing more resources into underserved communities to prevent the problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the first place .
While Biden has consistently rejected the “ defund the police ” label , he has been supportive of a more investment-focused approach to public safety .
“ We need to prevent 911 calls in scenarios where police should not be our first responders , ” he wrote in June .
“ This requires making serious investments in mental health services , drug treatment and prevention programs , and services for people experiencing homelessness.
” Biden has proposed policies like investing an ambitious $ 125 billion over 10 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ housing vouchers a universal entitlement ( a proposal that would help an additional 11 million low-income families get housing and would cut poverty by almost a quarter ) , tripling Title I funding for low-income schools , and doubling the number of school guidance counselors , social workers , and psychologists so that schools don ’ t have to turn to police to resolve issues .
Some Democrats are beginning to rethink a police-centric model of public safety in other ways as well .
Biden has proposed additional funding for “ co-response ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social workers would respond to relevant calls alongside police officers .
And some high-level congressional Democrats are even starting to support federal funding to create civilian first response units that would send unarmed professionals to deal with certain nonviolent emergencies ( more on that later ) .
“ The point is , Democrats have moved , ” says Chiraag Bains , co-chair of the Biden-Sanders unity task force on criminal justice and director of legal strategies at Demos , “ and if given the chance to govern , they ’ ll be much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the regressive , reactionary Trump administration .
The way things are going , we can break the mold of mass incarceration being a bipartisan enterprise.
” The Overton Window on policing has shifted , quickly The Democratic Party ’ s stances on policing have been routinely criticized by activists , experts , and progressive politicians who don ’ t believe they go nearly far enough .
At the same time , the party has moved faster on policing than perhaps any other issue in recent years .
For instance , take the opening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s section on “ Public Safety , Justice , and Crime Prevention ” : It goes on to assert : From today ’ s vantage point , these statements — which came during the second term of the most liberal president in decades — read like versions of a slightly more restrained Trump speech ( and even Trump has supported less punitive ways of dealing with substance abuse ) .
The only policing-related policy recommendations in the whole platform involves putting more officers on the streets ; there is no mention of police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies to combat it .
But we don ’ t even have to go back that far to see how much Democrats have shifted .
This is how the party ’ s 2016 platform — which at the time was lauded as an important departure from the party ’ s “ tough on crime ” days — described the party ’ s views on policing : That ’ s a still far cry from calling police brutality a “ stain on the soul of our nation.
” You have to read in between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find recognition that there ’ s a problem with policing at all .
But unlike its 2012 counterpart , the 2016 platform does suggest reforms like better officer training , use of force guidelines , national data collection , limiting military weapons , and requiring body cameras ( all policies that the 2020 platform also supports ) .
However , unlike the 2020 platform , it contains no mechanisms to hold police departments accountable to those changes besides saying that Democrats will “ work with police chiefs ” to do so .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reforming qualified immunity , banning chokeholds , limiting no-knock warrants , or decriminalizing marijuana use .
And it doesn ’ t call for nearly as bold of investments in issues like homelessness and substance abuse or link those investments to public safety .
In fact , the closest contemporary parallel to the 2016 Democratic platform ’ s policing recommendations is neither the 2020 platform nor the more limited Justice in Policing Act ; it is the JUSTICE Act , a bill spearheaded by Republican Sen. Tim Scott in June .
On issues like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and body cameras , the bill ’ s policies read as though they were taken directly from the Democrats ’ 2016 platform .
In some areas , like limiting the use of chokeholds , it goes even further than the Democrats did in 2016 .
“ The Democratic 2016 criminal justice plan is eerily similar to the current Republican plan being pushed by Senator Scott , ” says Arthur Rizer , director of the criminal justice program at the center-right R Street Institute .
“ It reminds me of how Obamacare was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan.
” That makes what happened next even more surprising .
When the JUSTICE Act came to the floor for a vote , every single Senate Republican , including staunch law-and-order advocates like Tom Cotton and Sen. Ted Cruz , voted for it .
But the legislation still didn ’ t make it through the Senate because all but three Senate Democrats voted against it , arguing the bill lacked concrete accountability mechanisms and failed to address key reforms like ending qualified immunity .
It ’ s important not to underestimate the significance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 , Republicans put forward a policing bill that looked a lot like Democrats ’ police reform wish list in 2016 , and made the 2012 Democratic platform look harsh and regressive by comparison .
Yet , Democrats almost unanimously rejected that bill for failing to include provisions that the majority of them did not support in 2016 .
“ The center of gravity in the country has changed a lot , ” says Chung .
“ Five years ago , I don ’ t think anyone could have imagined a Republican senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and get Republican support , or that House Democrats would unanimously support a bill that ended qualified immunity.
” Of course , these shifts didn ’ t happen because Democratic and Republican politicians had a sudden awakening about the problems of police brutality — they are responding to massive changes in public opinion around policing that have remained strong , even months after the peak of the nationwide protest movement .
According to Sean McElwee , executive director of the progressive polling outfit Data for Progress , the speed of this shift will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Across every poll we ’ ve conducted , we find that young people are most skeptical of police , ” he tells me .
“ Police have lost credibility with an entire generation that ’ s increasingly having kids and voting .
So the shift we ’ ve seen over the last few months is only going to continue.
” This shift will likely have a profound impact on criminal justice politics in America .
In previous decades , Democrats moved sharply to the right on criminal justice issues to win over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decades , it is possible the opposite will happen .
Republicans aged 18-29 , for instance , overwhelmingly support reforms like ending qualified immunity , and do so at almost double the rates of older Republicans .
“ The Democratic Party has taken a really important step over the last few months , ” says McElwee .
“ They ’ ve ended the Republican ownership of this law-and-order framework .
This militarization of cities like Portland is not working .
Republicans are being forced to move left on criminal justice issues .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be more ambitious — it will be interesting to see what they will do.
” The “ next frontier ” of criminal justice policy for Democrats The fact that the ground is shifting so quickly on policing issues raises some important questions : What ’ s next for Democrats ?
Are there any policies currently absent from the party platform that could potentially become part of policing legislation in a future Biden administration ?
When I put these questions to experts close to the party , I got back a fairly uniform answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governments ’ efforts to create unarmed civilian first response units to handle nonviolent emergencies .
“ This idea is supported by a wide range of Democrats and the criminal justice movement as a whole , ” says Chung .
“ Virtually every conversation I hear about policing and the criminal justice system involves a variation of this provision.
” The basic idea behind this proposal is simple .
Police officers spend an overwhelming majority of their time responding to nonviolent emergencies , from mental health crises to traffic accidents to domestic disputes — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more effectively , and with far less potential for unnecessary violence , by non-police professionals .
If there ’ s anything that the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the police killings of Rayshard Brooks , George Floyd , Breonna Taylor , Eric Garner , Philando Castile , and countless others have in common is that they would never have occurred if someone other than an armed police officer was the chosen first responder to a clearly nonviolent situation .
According to Data for Progress polling , 68 percent of likely voters support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ programs .
And solid majorities support non-police responses for a variety of situations , including substance abuse , homelessness , and mental health crises .
Already , cities across the country are developing their own civilian first responder programs .
However , while likely voters tend to support investing in non-police responders , they are much more hesitant to dip into local police budgets to do so .
Only about half of likely voters support reducing police budgets to invest in social programs , and direct questions about defunding the police are often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where the federal government could play a significant role .
Federal grants could help cities , states , and localities set up civilian first response units to address issues like mental health , homelessness , substance abuse , and low-level disputes without having to first slash police budgets .
Cities could take the time to set up these programs with proper resources , present them as a win-win for police and civilians alike , and give them ample opportunity to demonstrate success — all without having to worry about drawn-out fights with police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put the effort in jeopardy .
“ The federal government ’ s role is generally limited on criminal justice issues , but this is one area where federal support could have a real impact , ” says Emily Galvin-Almanza , founder and executive director of Partners for Justice .
“ Establishing successful models for non-police response can really help this idea spread to places that might initially be skeptical.
” In the wake of the nationwide protests against police brutality , this kind of idea is becoming increasingly mainstream for Democrats .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — which included establishment figures like Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders , former Attorney General Eric Holder , and Rep. Bobby Scott ( D-VA ) , chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor — decided to include this as one of its policy recommendations : And earlier this month , Sens .
Ron Wyden ( D-OR ) and Catherine Cortez Masto ( D-NV ) proposed the CAHOOTS Act — named after the much-applauded initiative in Eugene , Oregon , that sends unarmed crisis specialists instead of police to address noncriminal 911 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a 95 percent federal funding match through Medicaid to states and localities that decided to pilot non-police crisis response units with a mental health component .
“ It ’ s long past time to reimagine policing in ways that reduce violence and structural racism , and health care can play a key role in that effort , ” Wyden said during the bill ’ s unveiling .
“ Americans struggling with mental illness don ’ t always require law enforcement to be dispatched when they are experiencing a crisis — CAHOOTS is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Like many members of the Biden-Sanders unity task force , Wyden and Cortez Masto are not police abolitionists or even avowed progressives .
Most ideological scorecards tend to place them squarely in the middle of the Democratic Party .
Wyden in particular is one of the influential Democrats in the Senate to date — he is slated to chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee if Democrats retake the chamber in 2021 .
And they aren ’ t the only ones who are pushing for legislation in this area .
In a recent interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) announced that he and Rep. Karen Bass ( D-CA ) would soon be introducing a bill that would establish a $ 100 million-per-year grant program to fund an even wider range of community-based alternatives to police .
“ If we ’ re talking about investing in alternative first responders , the party is already there , ” says Stacey Walker , a Sanders appointee to the Biden-Sanders unity task force on criminal justice .
“ Criminal justice advocates on both sides of the aisle understand the wisdom behind it .
This can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reform come 2021 if the Biden administration takes it seriously.
” However , federal funding for alternative first responders is one of the only policy recommendations from the Biden-Sanders criminal justice unity task force that is not referenced at all in the 2020 party platform .
And while Biden has publicly supported bigger investments toward issues like homelessness and substance abuse and federal funding for police “ co-response ” models , he has not done the same for civilian first response teams .
( The Biden campaign did not respond to multiple requests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s probably intentional on the campaign ’ s part .
Republicans have already tried , with limited success , to pin the unpopular “ defund the police ” label on Biden — namely by using a deceptively-edited clip of Biden approving of the broad idea of redirecting some police funding to priorities like mental health and social services .
So while federal funding for civilian first responders wouldn ’ t necessarily reduce police budgets , it isn ’ t hard to imagine how Republicans could manipulate the idea to convince voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , the experts I spoke with were confident that the Biden-Harris ticket will be open to progressive ideas like this one once it is no longer in the midst of an intense election .
“ I think right now the calculation is : Why create talking points for Trump at this point ?
” says Galvin-Almanza .
“ But I truly believe Biden and Harris are open to hearing from progressives on these issues and will do so once in office.
” Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

If you’re confused about where Democrats stand on policing reform, you have good reason to be.
On the one hand, protesters, activists, and professional athletes are demanding that Democrats at both a local and national level do more to address police brutality against Black Americans. On the other, several speakers at the Republican National Convention claimed that Joe Biden and Democrats are radical police abolitionists who, as Trump himself put it, will “defund police departments all across America” if given power.
So what’s the truth? The short answer is that while Democrats’ policing agenda is not nearly as ambitious as either defund activists or Republican politicians would like them to be, it is by far the most progressive in modern American history. The 2020 Democratic Party’s views on policing make the party of 2016 look regressive and the party of 2012 look almost unrecognizably backward.
“The first thing my colleagues wanted to do to address police violence was focus on accountability,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tells me. “But the more of these videos that come out, the more they are realizing that just holding a few bad cops accountable isn’t enough — this is about an entire system. I think that’s a huge change.”
The most recent indication of where Democrats stand on policing is the criminal justice section of the 2020 Democratic Party platform. As my colleague Andrew Prokop explains, party platforms are consensus documents: They use inputs from a wide range of coalition actors within the party to provide a broad summary of what the party stands for and the direction it wants to move the country toward. And research has shown that, in 25 years, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress voted in accordance with their platforms more than 80 percent of the time.
The first thing that stands out about the Democrats’ 2020 criminal justice platform is its framing, which is unequivocal about the state of policing in America:
Democrats believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom. Police brutality is a stain on the soul of our nation. It is unacceptable that millions of people in our country have good reason to fear they may lose their lives in a routine traffic stop, or while standing on a street corner, or while playing with a toy in a public park. It is unacceptable that Black parents must have “the talk” with their children, to try to protect them from the very police officers who are supposed to be sworn to protect and serve them. It is unacceptable that more than 1,000 people, a quarter of them Black, have been killed by police every year since 2015.
In terms of concrete policy proposals, the bulk of the platform’s policing agenda focuses on preventing officers from abusing their power and holding them accountable when they do. Drawing on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 — which received unanimous support among House Democrats but has since been stymied in the Senate — it proposes policies like reining in qualified immunity, banning chokeholds, developing stricter use-of-force standards, creating a national registry of officer misconduct, and limiting no-knock warrants.
It also outlines specific mechanisms for holding state and local departments accountable to these reforms, namely tying federal law enforcement funding to implementation of these measures and strengthening the Department of Justice’s ability to investigate police misconduct in individual departments (which can often result in concrete reforms).
“The Democratic Party is a big tent, which means that different coalitions tend to differ on most issues,” says Ed Chung, vice president for criminal justice reform at the Center for American Progress. “But what Democrats of all stripes tend to agree on is police accountability as well as improving and bettering police officers through things like better training.”
But the bigger ideological change in the Democratic Party is the openness to a new approach to public safety: moving away from criminalization and toward a model focused more on investment and public health interventions. The 2020 platform specifically calls for “reorienting our public safety approach toward prevention and away from over-policing” in order to “prevent law enforcement from becoming unnecessarily entangled in the everyday lives of Americans.”
Democrats propose two ways of doing this: First, by decriminalizing marijuana use and diverting those struggling with substance abuse away from the criminal justice system and into treatment-based interventions. Second, by investing more resources into underserved communities to prevent the problems typically associated with law enforcement from arising in the first place.
While Biden has consistently rejected the “defund the police” label, he has been supportive of a more investment-focused approach to public safety. “We need to prevent 911 calls in scenarios where police should not be our first responders,” he wrote in June. “This requires making serious investments in mental health services, drug treatment and prevention programs, and services for people experiencing homelessness.”
Biden has proposed policies like investing an ambitious $125 billion over 10 years to address the opioid epidemic, making housing vouchers a universal entitlement (a proposal that would help an additional 11 million low-income families get housing and would cut poverty by almost a quarter), tripling Title I funding for low-income schools, and doubling the number of school guidance counselors, social workers, and psychologists so that schools don’t have to turn to police to resolve issues.
Some Democrats are beginning to rethink a police-centric model of public safety in other ways as well. Biden has proposed additional funding for “co-response” teams, whereby mental health clinicians and social workers would respond to relevant calls alongside police officers. And some high-level congressional Democrats are even starting to support federal funding to create civilian first response units that would send unarmed professionals to deal with certain nonviolent emergencies (more on that later).
“The point is, Democrats have moved,” says Chiraag Bains, co-chair of the Biden-Sanders unity task force on criminal justice and director of legal strategies at Demos, “and if given the chance to govern, they’ll be much more open to dialogue and influence than the regressive, reactionary Trump administration. The way things are going, we can break the mold of mass incarceration being a bipartisan enterprise.”
The Overton Window on policing has shifted, quickly
The Democratic Party’s stances on policing have been routinely criticized by activists, experts, and progressive politicians who don’t believe they go nearly far enough. At the same time, the party has moved faster on policing than perhaps any other issue in recent years.
For instance, take the opening paragraph of the 2012 Democratic platform’s section on “Public Safety, Justice, and Crime Prevention”:
In the last four years, rates of serious crimes, like murder, rape, and robbery, have reached 50-year lows, but there is more work to do. President Obama and Democrats are fighting for new funding that will help keep cops on the street and support our police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. Republicans and Mitt Romney have opposed and even ridiculed these proposals, but we believe we should support our first responders. We support efforts to ensure our courageous police officers and first responders are equipped with the best technology, equipment, and innovative strategies to prevent and fight crimes.
It goes on to assert:
We must help state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement work together to combat and prevent drug crime and drug and alcohol abuse, which are blights on our communities.
From today’s vantage point, these statements — which came during the second term of the most liberal president in decades — read like versions of a slightly more restrained Trump speech (and even Trump has supported less punitive ways of dealing with substance abuse). The only policing-related policy recommendations in the whole platform involves putting more officers on the streets; there is no mention of police misconduct of any kind, let alone policies to combat it.
But we don’t even have to go back that far to see how much Democrats have shifted. This is how the party’s 2016 platform — which at the time was lauded as an important departure from the party’s “tough on crime” days — described the party’s views on policing:
We will rebuild the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Across the country, there are police officers inspiring trust and confidence, honorably doing their duty, deploying creative and effective strategies, and demonstrating that it is possible to prevent crime without relying on unnecessary force. They deserve our respect and support, and we should learn from those examples and build on what works.
That’s a still far cry from calling police brutality a “stain on the soul of our nation.” You have to read in between the lines of the platform just to find recognition that there’s a problem with policing at all. But unlike its 2012 counterpart, the 2016 platform does suggest reforms like better officer training, use of force guidelines, national data collection, limiting military weapons, and requiring body cameras (all policies that the 2020 platform also supports).
However, unlike the 2020 platform, it contains no mechanisms to hold police departments accountable to those changes besides saying that Democrats will “work with police chiefs” to do so. It doesn’t even mention proposals like reforming qualified immunity, banning chokeholds, limiting no-knock warrants, or decriminalizing marijuana use. And it doesn’t call for nearly as bold of investments in issues like homelessness and substance abuse or link those investments to public safety.
In fact, the closest contemporary parallel to the 2016 Democratic platform’s policing recommendations is neither the 2020 platform nor the more limited Justice in Policing Act; it is the JUSTICE Act, a bill spearheaded by Republican Sen. Tim Scott in June. On issues like deescalation training guidelines, data collection, and body cameras, the bill’s policies read as though they were taken directly from the Democrats’ 2016 platform. In some areas, like limiting the use of chokeholds, it goes even further than the Democrats did in 2016.
“The Democratic 2016 criminal justice plan is eerily similar to the current Republican plan being pushed by Senator Scott,” says Arthur Rizer, director of the criminal justice program at the center-right R Street Institute. “It reminds me of how Obamacare was a total rip-off of the Republican Bob Dole plan.”
That makes what happened next even more surprising. When the JUSTICE Act came to the floor for a vote, every single Senate Republican, including staunch law-and-order advocates like Sens. Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, voted for it. But the legislation still didn’t make it through the Senate because all but three Senate Democrats voted against it, arguing the bill lacked concrete accountability mechanisms and failed to address key reforms like ending qualified immunity.
It’s important not to underestimate the significance of this sequence of events: In 2020, Republicans put forward a policing bill that looked a lot like Democrats’ police reform wish list in 2016, and made the 2012 Democratic platform look harsh and regressive by comparison. Yet, Democrats almost unanimously rejected that bill for failing to include provisions that the majority of them did not support in 2016.
“The center of gravity in the country has changed a lot,” says Chung. “Five years ago, I don’t think anyone could have imagined a Republican senator would offer something like the JUSTICE Act and get Republican support, or that House Democrats would unanimously support a bill that ended qualified immunity.”
Of course, these shifts didn’t happen because Democratic and Republican politicians had a sudden awakening about the problems of police brutality — they are responding to massive changes in public opinion around policing that have remained strong, even months after the peak of the nationwide protest movement.
According to Sean McElwee, executive director of the progressive polling outfit Data for Progress, the speed of this shift will only be accelerated by demographic trends. “Across every poll we’ve conducted, we find that young people are most skeptical of police,” he tells me. “Police have lost credibility with an entire generation that’s increasingly having kids and voting. So the shift we’ve seen over the last few months is only going to continue.”
This shift will likely have a profound impact on criminal justice politics in America. In previous decades, Democrats moved sharply to the right on criminal justice issues to win over the majority of voters; in coming decades, it is possible the opposite will happen.
Republicans aged 18-29, for instance, overwhelmingly support reforms like ending qualified immunity, and do so at almost double the rates of older Republicans.
“The Democratic Party has taken a really important step over the last few months,” says McElwee. “They’ve ended the Republican ownership of this law-and-order framework. This militarization of cities like Portland is not working. Republicans are being forced to move left on criminal justice issues. That means there is room for Democrats to be more ambitious — it will be interesting to see what they will do.”
The “next frontier” of criminal justice policy for Democrats
The fact that the ground is shifting so quickly on policing issues raises some important questions: What’s next for Democrats? Are there any policies currently absent from the party platform that could potentially become part of policing legislation in a future Biden administration?
When I put these questions to experts close to the party, I got back a fairly uniform answer: federal funding that would support local governments’ efforts to create unarmed civilian first response units to handle nonviolent emergencies.
“This idea is supported by a wide range of Democrats and the criminal justice movement as a whole,” says Chung. “Virtually every conversation I hear about policing and the criminal justice system involves a variation of this provision.”
The basic idea behind this proposal is simple. Police officers spend an overwhelming majority of their time responding to nonviolent emergencies, from mental health crises to traffic accidents to domestic disputes — situations that could be dealt with much more effectively, and with far less potential for unnecessary violence, by non-police professionals. If there’s anything that the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the police killings of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, and countless others have in common is that they would never have occurred if someone other than an armed police officer was the chosen first responder to a clearly nonviolent situation.
According to Data for Progress polling, 68 percent of likely voters support the creation of non-law enforcement emergency responders programs. And solid majorities support non-police responses for a variety of situations, including substance abuse, homelessness, and mental health crises. Already, cities across the country are developing their own civilian first responder programs.
However, while likely voters tend to support investing in non-police responders, they are much more hesitant to dip into local police budgets to do so. Only about half of likely voters support reducing police budgets to invest in social programs, and direct questions about defunding the police are often opposed by majorities.
That’s where the federal government could play a significant role. Federal grants could help cities, states, and localities set up civilian first response units to address issues like mental health, homelessness, substance abuse, and low-level disputes without having to first slash police budgets. Cities could take the time to set up these programs with proper resources, present them as a win-win for police and civilians alike, and give them ample opportunity to demonstrate success — all without having to worry about drawn-out fights with police unions or police work slowdowns that could put the effort in jeopardy.
“The federal government’s role is generally limited on criminal justice issues, but this is one area where federal support could have a real impact,” says Emily Galvin-Almanza, founder and executive director of Partners for Justice. “Establishing successful models for non-police response can really help this idea spread to places that might initially be skeptical.”
In the wake of the nationwide protests against police brutality, this kind of idea is becoming increasingly mainstream for Democrats. The Biden-Sanders unity task force on criminal justice — which included establishment figures like Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor — decided to include this as one of its policy recommendations:
Federal funding to create a civilian corps of unarmed first responders such as social workers, EMTs, and trained mental health professionals, who can handle nonviolent emergencies including order maintenance violations, mental health emergencies, and low-level conflicts outside the criminal justice system, freeing police officers to concentrate on the most serious crimes.
And earlier this month, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) proposed the CAHOOTS Act — named after the much-applauded initiative in Eugene, Oregon, that sends unarmed crisis specialists instead of police to address noncriminal 911 calls — which would provide startup grants and a 95 percent federal funding match through Medicaid to states and localities that decided to pilot non-police crisis response units with a mental health component.
“It’s long past time to reimagine policing in ways that reduce violence and structural racism, and health care can play a key role in that effort,” Wyden said during the bill’s unveiling. “Americans struggling with mental illness don’t always require law enforcement to be dispatched when they are experiencing a crisis — CAHOOTS is proof positive there is another way.”
Like many members of the Biden-Sanders unity task force, Wyden and Cortez Masto are not police abolitionists or even avowed progressives. Most ideological scorecards tend to place them squarely in the middle of the Democratic Party. Wyden in particular is one of the influential Democrats in the Senate to date — he is slated to chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee if Democrats retake the chamber in 2021.
And they aren’t the only ones who are pushing for legislation in this area. In a recent interview, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced that he and Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) would soon be introducing a bill that would establish a $100 million-per-year grant program to fund an even wider range of community-based alternatives to police.
“If we’re talking about investing in alternative first responders, the party is already there,” says Stacey Walker, a Sanders appointee to the Biden-Sanders unity task force on criminal justice. “Criminal justice advocates on both sides of the aisle understand the wisdom behind it. This can be the next frontier for criminal justice reform come 2021 if the Biden administration takes it seriously.”
However, federal funding for alternative first responders is one of the only policy recommendations from the Biden-Sanders criminal justice unity task force that is not referenced at all in the 2020 party platform. And while Biden has explicitly called for bigger investments toward issues like homelessness and substance abuse and federal funding for police “co-response” models, he has not done the same for civilian first response teams. (After publication of this story, the Biden campaign pointed out that the candidate does support the broader idea that police shouldn’t be the go-to first responder in every situation.)
That’s probably intentional on the campaign’s part. Republicans have already tried, with limited success, to pin the unpopular “defund the police” label on Biden — namely by using a deceptively-edited clip of Biden approving of the broad idea of redirecting some police funding to priorities like mental health and social services. So while federal funding for civilian first responders wouldn’t necessarily reduce police budgets, it isn’t hard to imagine how Republicans could manipulate the idea to convince voters that Biden has a secret defund-the-police agenda.
Still, the experts I spoke with were confident that the Biden-Harris ticket will be open to progressive ideas like this one once it is no longer in the midst of an intense election. “I think right now the calculation is: Why create talking points for Trump at this point?” says Galvin-Almanza. “But I truly believe Biden and Harris are open to hearing from progressives on these issues and will do so once in office.”