I could be wrong but "defund the police" was just a discussion point for activists talking amongst themselves. In that context it makes sense. What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right and then every Dem politician had to answer if they supported the idea of abolishing the police.

I'd imagine that many people would be receptive to the idea of taking some money out of police budgets so social workers and people trained in deescalation can be hired. For example cops aren't a good fit when dealing with people facing mental health crises because they mostly turn to use of force and make a bad situation worse.

If you twist this into, "are you in favor of abolishing all police?" then most people are going to say, "hell no, what a stupid idea, you moron".

Now any discussion about the rotten state of policing in the US had been effectively hobbled. Discussion is shut down. The right wing wins.

Unfortunately police reform doesn't necessarily imply taking police funds and diverting them to nonviolent responders instead. It's hard to make that into a catchy phrase that can't be misinterpreted. I could see cities implementing some rubber-stamp oversight board filled with ex-cops and saying, "see, we reformed the police! They have oversight now."

Ugh, "defund the police" is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed.

I feel like these are probably astroturfed movements. Because you can say the same thing about the "antiwork" movement, whose proponents claim to actually want to work.

The designation of your movement is kind of important.

Woke means that if you're in a privileged position in a society, more equality is a threat to your status and should be suppressed.

Critical Race Theory, school libraries full of porn, caravans of migrants heading to the southern border, activist judges legislating from the bench, and so on.

Maybe? I don't have a definite timeline and there were lots of groups talking to each other.