what’s the end goal here Zohran. ‘Socialism’ (actually social democracy) but with a roving gang of armed and organized fascists that we just ignore? are we just going to kick the issue of systemic racism down the road because it’s “woke 1” to even talk about, until it becomes a powder keg again? this is the actual internal DSA white chauvinism contradiction that MSM are clawing to find but they won’t use it as a real wedge because it’d increase the salience of Defund again
I agree that budget cuts alone are insufficient. You need to build power of your own, obviously. Ideally redirect resources whenever possible. Another idea could be stuffing the department with as many of your cronies as possible to sabotage the department internally. There are many tactics which could be tried.
But obviously this would require a serious plan to phase out the police (meaning replace their minority of genuinely pro-social roles) and building an appropriate armed force. Mamdani almost certainly has no such plans. Removing Jessica Tisch and ideally replacing her with someone else who will stuff the department with wreckers is an easy step which could be taken though.