The narrative power of “abolish the police” - Vox

don’t think about “abolish the police” as merely a policy proposal... Think about it as a narrative ... to change how people think... an objective to rally behind... a lesson in how... the broader left ... needs to work on its storytelling skills as much as its policy proposals...

“storytelling” [is] ... a three-act structure ... a character with a goal ... Thunberg's lonely protests ... sold a character (the world’s children and teens) with a goal ... didn’t expressly set out to launch a massive policy initiative ... simply created a narrative overlay for the world... Climate change suddenly ... had a face and a name ...

leftist politics ... reads “abolish the police” and internalizes that statement as a goal ... mainstream liberals ... a singular, literal solution rather than a larger, farther-reaching goal...

“abolish the police” isn’t a solution. It’s a statement of intent. It’s saying, “Sweeping police reform is our goal. We are people who want to accomplish that goal. Are you with us?” It’s shifting the storytelling frame ... to one that better reflects how [police] are perceived by ... targets of aggressive policing...

Democratic Party is pretty lousy at coming up with clear, concrete goals ... Republican Party is pretty good at telling these sorts of stories... Trump had a slogan and not a lot else, ran against Hillary Clinton, who had a whole bunch of policy ideas and no unifying story... policy almost always follows narrative, not the other way around. Narrative establishes extremely clear moral stakes. It forces everybody involved in the discussion to occupy your story, rather than you winding up in somebody else’s.