My initial thought about "defunding the police" was to see it as ridiculous, preposterous even. As the idea percolated through my day's experiences, I begin seeing the possible emergence of one of those weird left-right coalitions that so often leads to extremely bad public policy.
We know the left thinks the police are racists and killers and would like them to "go away." What happens if all the shop owners and small business people whose establishments and merchandise were destroyed by looters decide to join them? They'd be thinking that since the police stood aside and allowed the looters to loot, paying good money to keep police employed is pointless.
It was just this sort of left-right coalition that "defunded" our former system of mental hospitals, why not the police? Shop owners gotta think the Mafia or local MS-13 chapter can do a better job of protecting their shops than police who get told to stand down by left-wing mayors who side with rioters.
After all, if you pay armed hoodlums under the table to protect your shop and they fail, you stop paying them because you've nothing left to lose. They'll kill rioters to protect their income source, which the police cannot be permitted to do.
I don't see this sort of left-right coalition as a high-probability outcome, but it isn't impossible.
