Former President Barack Obama drew criticism from progressive Democrats this week for suggesting that “snappy” slogans like “defund the police” are alienating voters and making it harder from a political standpoint to enact “changes you want done.”

In an interview with Peter Hamby, who hosts the Snapchat political show “Good Luck America,” Obama said “you [lose] a big audience the minute” a slogan like “defund the police” is used, making “it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.”

“Defund the police” refers to the reallocation or redirection of government funding from police departments to social services for minority communities. As Rashawn Ray of the Brookings Institution noted, defunding does not mean the abolishment of police departments but instead “highlights fiscal responsibility” and “advocates for a market-driven approach to taxpayer money.”....

Obama ― echoing other centrist Democrats who’ve similarly taken issue with “defund the police” and what they’ve decried as radical messaging ― told Hamby that Democrats could benefit from adopting softer rhetoric when talking about police reform.

“If you instead say, ‘Hey, you know what? Let’s reform the police department so that everybody’s being treated fairly. And not just in policing, but in sentencing, how can we divert young people from getting into crime?’” he said.