J. Pharoah Doss: Tennessee repeals local police reform: was the repeal Republican paternalism?

Members of Memphis’ SCORPION unit were behind the brutal beating of a suspect.& City of Memphis via AP George Lakoff’s book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Con­servatives Think, makes a dis­tinction between left and right through parenting approaches. He modeled the left after a nurturing parent and the right after a strict parent. A nurturing parent over­protects to prevent undesirable outcomes, while a strict parent prepares for them but acknowl­edges their inevitability. Recently, a Lakoffian conflict erupted in Tennessee between the Republican-controlled state and the Democratic city of Memphis over a municipal ordinance commemorating Tyre Nichols. Tyre Nichols was stopped for reck­less driving in 2023 by members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit. SCORPION, a specialized unit, patrolled high-crime areas, focusing on gang and drug-re­lated offenses. Members of SCORPI­ON took Nichols from his car, pepper sprayed him, tased him, and beat him up. Nichols died at the hospital three days later. Police body cameras filmed the majority of the deadly incident. The footage indicated that the police offi­cers had no grounds to pull Nichols over, and their actions were unlaw­ful. The Memphis Police Department quickly fired the officers, charged them with second-degree murder, and disbanded the SCORPION unit. The...