In the days following President Joe Biden’s 2020 landslide victory, having amassed the largest popular vote in American election history, congressional Democrats were drowning in recriminations.  Instead of swelling their numbers in a triumphant blue wave, Democrats lost seats to an advancing Republican red wall. Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger berated her colleagues, warning them that if her party continued to be associated with “defunding the police” and “socialism” of any stripe, “We will get fucking torn apart in 2022. That’s the reality.”

Reality is about to come knocking once more, with the 2022 midterms just two months away. Her tirade, however, has won little traction. Spanberger and other “front line” Democrats have made little progress in persuading their progressive colleagues to forestall the thrashing. Despite the moderates’ pleas to throw local law enforcement and their own political careers a lifeline, House progressives have repeatedly blocked efforts to refund the police, choosing to ruminate on how to “define” them, instead.

In an autopsy of the 2020 wipe out, the Democrats’ own campaign arm concluded that the Republicans’ “soft on crime” accusation was “alarmingly potent.” Now, facing another potential election buzzsaw, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, shrugs. “[If] we thought it [funding the police] could pass,” he told reporters last month, “I’d put it on the floor [for a vote] tomorrow.” It could, and likely will, next year, with votes from the GOP.