Very few people are buying into the "defund" idea in the form that right wing paranoia vendors are pushing it.
Most - and probably a huge preponderance of - Democrats would favor reallocations of resources to keep police out of affairs and situations with which they are not trained to deal.
Right wingers will attempt to keep "defund" as a hotbutton issue, and they might succeed in leveraging it into a little bit more turnout from their idiot-base. But that's all.
Yes, I'm slightly left of center and I understand the argument. I understand that some on the left want to hire unemployed Psychiatrists, pay them an officer's wages or less, and then ask them to intervene into potentially dangerous family disturbance calls and expertly deescalate the situations. But even I, a person on the left, is suspicious of this plan. But I'm open minded. However, I'm talking about people in the middle. I'm not talking about the left. The election will be decided by the middle - mostly suburban people in Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Like it or not, they will be the ones who decide the election. And I think that they will be very scared about the defunding plan. And we should all be aware that Trump will seize on this issue, and run on it very very hard.
Couple of things: I believe that most police officers regard domestic situations as extremely volatile and potentially dangerous. And they really can be. A very sad situation in my community maybe...25 years ago: A couple had a very volatile relationship. The woman had moved the kids to her sisters' and had requested a police escort to finish removing her belongings from the family home. Officers, as well as her parents accompanied her because the husband was known to be violent. In front of police officers, the husband shot his wife, who died on the scene. He hung himself in his jail cell.
That was obviously a very dangerous situation and without police officers on site, likely more people would have been shot. However, one cannot help but think that if there had been more social structures in place, more resources for the family prior to this incident, this might have been prevented and those kids could have grown up with their mother and in an ideal world, the father would have gotten enough help with his issues that he could have been in their lives, and safely, as well.
Another thing is: I know a police officer in a major city who has to administer Narcan multiple times during every single shift. This is something that obviously is out of the scope of his work in most circumstances. Ideally, no one would ever overdose but within the realm of reality: shouldn't this be administered by a trained medical professional, such as an EMT? Precious moments that mean the difference between life and death would be lost if they waited for the ambulance to arrive, but why isn't the ambulance the first to be called to the scene?
The other thing is that: there is a tremendous shortage of mental health professionals. I strongly doubt that there are ANY unemployed psychiatrists who actually still hold their licenses to practice. One psychiatrist I know has been considering moving to AK because it would be so lucrative: the entire state has something like 2 licensed psychiatrists now. As it is, ask anyone who is seeking good care from a psychologist, psychiatrist or even mental health social worker and they will likely tell you that it can be a long wait for an appointment. We need to encourage more people to become qualified for this field and not to pay them squat.
When I think of defunding the police, I think of de-militarizing the police. Departments have been purchasing lots of overstock of military equipment for years and have enormous firepower. This simply escalates situations rather than deescalates them.
Another thing is that the vast majority of crime is drug and/or alcohol related. Decriminalization of drugs will not change that---I included alcohol, which is totally legal, in that for a very good reason. We need to address the problem we have that leads people to overindulge or develop dangerous habits that make them more vulnerable and more volatile.
Also: Wisconsin is not a big suburban state. Lots and lots and lots of small towns, a couple of biggish cities and some small towns.
