Your hypothetical doesn’t work because as soon as you start explaining to people why ICE should be abolished, you’ve lost them. Especially when you have a Republican candidate saying that Abolish ICE = Open borders.
Find me anyone other than Trump and Jeff Sessions that is in favor of the forcible separation of families.
It’s extreme based on that survey. Disapproval of an agency does not equal wishing that agency to cease to exist.
Anyone who would have been lost without listening to why abolishing ICE, the correct position, would fix the family separation policy wouldn’t support any of the items that would come under the veneer of renaming it to a palatable saccharine “reform ice” policy anyways.
“Buh buh abolishing ICE means OPEN BORDERS AND CRIME!!!”
The Weather Underground was extreme - this is the downright reasonable leftist position. Get rid of the thing that nobody likes and get everyone on Medicare. We’re angry, but we’re not unreasonable.
These are imaginary people or racists who wouldn’t support any demonstrable reform anyways.
Yea I mean it’s funny when people say we are more polarized today, do they realize how many politically bombings and assassinations occurred in the US in the 60’s and 70;'s.
It’s because this country has moved so far right people really don’t know what far left positions actually look like.
How do you know that? Where are your polls stating that the only people who feel that way are racists or imaginary? You underestimate the stupidity of the average voter and/or how easily they can be persuaded by simple, right-wing talking points.
Know the 20 80 rule? Where like 10% of people are on this forum, and another 10% are on /pol/ and the other 80% just wanna be normal. If you make ABOLISH ICE normal, then 90% will support it.
Culture is plastic, and it can be changed. The right knows this and has been using it for years. We can play too. We can win.
Also more importantly, if the candidate is running around saying Abolish ICE, they probably live in a district or state where they don’t need that voter anyhow.
“When the poll results are broken down by party, the discrepancy is pretty stark: Forty-three percent of the Democrats surveyed said they would support the federal government’s dismantling of ICE, while 79 percent of the Republican respondents said they were against it. Fifty-four percent of the independents polled also voiced support for keeping ICE.”
“Only 1 in 4 voters in the poll, 25 percent, believe the federal government should get rid of ICE. The majority, 54 percent, think the government should keep ICE. Twenty-one percent of voters are undecided.”
"That said, a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday suggests that moderate Democrats’ skepticism about the political viability of “abolish ICE” was far from baseless. In that survey, just 25 percent of voters endorse eliminating the agency, while 54 percent oppose abolition. The movement has nonetheless succeeded in making “abolish ICE” a mainstream position within the Democratic electorate; 43 percent of Democratic voters say ICE should be melted, while 34 percent want to keep it around.
This suggests that, outside of blue districts, it probably isn’t in Democratic candidates’ short-term political interest to campaign on the abolition of ICE – especially since the party enjoys an enormous polling advantage on health-care, an issue which happens to be highly salient among midterm voters."
Again, Democrats should be focusing on issues that bring out the midterm voters. Without control of Congress, Abolishing ICE is a pipe dream anyway.
If the average voter is really that stupid, why do you think a nuanced policy of “well lets see, lets go line by line and see what is really good in this agency or not, and really reform this agency. Idk it’s complicated but I think with enough time and amendments we can find a workable middle ground” would do any better? Where is YOUR evidence that reform ICE is a better platform? There is none. You just don’t want to accept the fact that Abolishing ICE isn’t a conservative idea or one that you can get behind. That’s OK. We can get the votes elsewhere.
Hey, I want Medicare for All to be the #1 platform. Abolishing ICE is the cherry on top.
I want Democrats to win in 2018 so they can try to do both.
It’s called being sneaky enough about it so that they don’t realize they’re voting to abolish ICE. If the only hear about ending ICE’s most egregious policies at first, that’s a start. You then keep working your way down the list until, to paraphrase a conservative saying, you can “drown ICE in a bathtub.” At which point, even if it exists in name, it’s been so crippled that it can’t do anything anyway.
D: “Stop ICE from separating families!”
Dumb Voter: “Okay…”
D: “Stop ICE from wasting money on private prisons!”
Dumb Voter: “Okay…”
And so on.
Likewise, and I think to do so, they’ll need to be somewhat sneaky in non-deep-blue districts to pull it off.
This. 1000 times this.
Ironically, this is pretty much the tactic the “How to Abolish ICE” article put forward.
Awesome, glad we all agree on Abolishing ICE. It truly is a winning position 
We’re not disagreeing that ICE shouldn’t be abolished, we’re disagreeing about calling it that.
Branding is powerful. Branding is effective. Branding works. A piece by piece dismantling of ICE is easier if you start by stopping ICE from separating families, then moving on to private prisons, like @DMLou suggested.
Calling for the complete and utter abolishment of ICE opens Democrats up to all kinds of misinformation from Republicans and turns off independent voters.
