More importantly, "defund" is a fringe idea among Black people. This is the important aspect of the point I'm trying to make. Through BLM, progressive activists hijacked the broader call among Black people for police reform to push a fringe idea that Black people themselves didn't support. To do that, they weaponized accusations of racism. The New York Times fired an editor for publishing an Op-Ed by Tom Cotton that advocated doing basically the same thing Larry Hogan did in Baltimore in 2015, which caused his approval rating to skyrocket to over 70% in the majority Black city.

Faced with that, Democrats in 2020 did not treat the idea as "fringe." The put up the BLM signs on their yards and didn't say a word against the activists promoting defund. Aside from Joe Biden, prominent Democrats equivocated when confronted directly: Elizabeth Warren responded to a question about "defund" by saying "it's not the term I would use." That's not how you describe what you think is a "fringe" idea.