I think I’m reverting a bit into some deeply cursed instrumentalist tendencies, but at this point I honestly don’t even care if bad things happen to liberals who hate cops. Everything is materially worse for communists, and I spend a lot of time doing unpaid emotional labor explaining to people why the state monopoly on violence is bad in theory but extremely useful when I personally control a badge. I genuinely think like 90% of civilians secretly crave authority and just get mad when it isn’t wearing a red star. Even the “abolish the police” ones still call 911 the second their Amazon package goes missing.

I’m about 60% of the way to thinking: yeah, I’m gonna become a cop so I can redirect state violence away from communists and toward, like, vibes-based crime. I’ll simply arrest fascists, landlords, and anyone who says “both sides” unironically. I have the possibility of actually doing this. I doubt we’re having a revolution anytime soon, so like… isn’t this harm reduction? If someone is going to be a cop, shouldn’t it be a communist cop who’s read at least half of State and Revolution and skimmed the rest? There’s also the fact that communists basically have no institutional power. Becoming a police officer would mean we are finally forcing the state to materially support us with a pension, healthcare, and qualified immunity (but like, dialectically). I could see alternative arguments, like maybe you should simply organize outside the state and build dual power instead of enforcing bourgeois law with a gun, but that sounds hard and unpaid. Whereas being a cop lets me control outcomes directly, on a case-by-case basis, according to my personal theory of Marxism.

You’d probably have to deal with minor issues, like enforcing evictions, breaking strikes, or protecting capital, but obviously I would do those ironically. Plus, once enough communists become cops, the police will simply wither away. That’s how that works.

Obviously I’m a communist through and through, but why should I care about abstract moral consistency when the working class clearly isn’t in a position materially to understand why me becoming a cop is different from all the other cops? Talking to them won’t work either when they see you as a class traitor from the start. At least this way I get a gun, a union, and the satisfaction of telling myself I’m doing it for the revolution.