Kulturkampf

[HaughtyFrank]

At Socialism 2026, Georgetown professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò says that when he takes off his “commie hat” and puts on his “normie hat,” even he struggles to make police abolition sound convincing.

He recalls young people in Los Angeles who had been “on the wrong side of law enforcement” telling him that if police disappeared, "that's crazy" and “shit would go left immediately.”

Táíwò’s response is remarkable. Even if abolishing the police immediately proved disastrous, he says that still would not make abolition as the ultimate goal wrong.

“Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean abolition as the horizon isn’t true.”

Táíwò admits the real problem is explaining what happens next week, rather than offering people “the long march towards dialectical materialism.”

As Táíwò struggles to explain what comes next, NYU professor Chenjerai Kumanyika jumps in with the ideological lifeline, “The answer is revolution.”