Mostly talking about stuff like breadtubers, chapo, and media personalities like that, I can kind of tell why people like Bernie and Jezza where they're at. Is it the added wealth being a popular media personality gives you, the need to give a consistent product, the need to appeal to a wide breadth of people, and so on?
edit: also props to Brett at RevLeft for continuing to radicalise himself as the show has gone on
agreed! but where I'm confused is that I don't see abolitionists (like angela davis or harsha walia) as advocating for reforms for reforms sake.
Being more concrete, I don't think it's fence sitting to fight for concrete proposals such as defunding the police by 50% (which at least where I live still seems a long way away)! Even though these proposals fall well short of full police/prison abolition, they open up space for further victories that get us closer.
Convincing the working class that the police do not make us safe is also well-grounded in revolutionary perspective/praxis IMO.
I’ve listened to Angela Davis on abolition this summer, and my general take away was not that she advocates the working class taking power so that we can have actual control over the capitalist state such that we can actually abolish the police (and dismantle the rest capitalist state, to be replaced by our own).
Abolishing the police was one goal and abolishing capitalism a different goal.
Abolishing the police isn’t achievable under capitalism, so you could say it’s a transitional demand, a demand that pushes the envelope beyond capitalism, because it is rooted in current conditions but cannot be fulfilled under capitalism.
But the objective of the transitional demand is to raise the perspective that we need to move beyond capitalism, as part of a larger program for actually moving beyond capitalism.
Hmm. I think both of these goals (having control over the capitalist to abolish it state AND abolishing the police) need to happen jointly.
That said, unless I'm missing something I feel like we're somewhat in agreement -- my use of the term "abolitionist reform" seems to be pretty similar to what you were calling a "transitional demand." It's not the end goal, but it brings us closer and challenges power (rather than, say, reformist reforms like police body cameras that entrench existing power structures).