One man's view:
There have always been nutjobs and idiots in politics and there always will be, but I think a disturbing trend in recent years has been smart non-crazy people getting invested in sanewashing bad actors.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 23, 2021
By "sanewashing," Matt is referring to the practice of trying to explain away insane statements. For example, "Defunding the police doesn't really mean defunding the police. It really means _______"
Now, for some reason this is not an issue on the right. Their nutcases get to say anything they want and nobody cares. I acknowledge that this is totally unfair. But who cares? The goal of politics is to win elections, not to lose and then whine about the unfairness of the other side having some advantage you lack.
On the left, which is what I care about, this is a big issue, and it's a big issue for one specific reason: it scares off people who might vote for us. Go ahead and ask your moderate conservative friends why they're afraid to vote for Democrats even though they admit that Trump has turned the Republican Party into a clown show. The answer is almost always going to be a litany of complaints about the most extreme progressive policies out there. They're afraid Democrats want to spend another $6 trillion because one guy proposed it. They're afraid Democrats want to open the border with Mexico because a small clique approves of it. They're afraid Democrats want to get rid of the police because three or four people suggested it. They're afraid Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court even though this is a distinctly limited view.
I could go on, but you get the idea. These kinds of things are killers for a party that wants to win more votes, but everyone is afraid to publicly denounce them hard and fast for fear of being branded racist/sexist/transphobic/etc. by a few extremists. And that's all the opening that Fox News and others need to make it seem as if this stuff might really be the goal of mainstream liberals.
Mainstream liberals should not be afraid to make a distinction between proposals that are merely to our left and proposals that are batshit crazy. The former we can oppose in a normal way (and vice versa), but the latter should be swatted down with extreme prejudice. It doesn't matter if the folks proposing the crazy ideas are white or Black, young or old, or men or women. Have the guts to call them nutcases if that's what they are and to accept the inevitable accusations of racism, sexism, ageism, or whatever. Just tell the truth. If something is crazy, call it crazy.
After all, you want to win, don't you?
"Defunding the police" really does mean reducing funding for traditional police activities. Spending money on military hardware is not an efficient way to make us safer. Spending money on other things: parks, mental health, education ... is more cost effective.
I don't have any moderate conservative friends. But sounds to me like you are saying we need to cater to stupid because we want stupid to vote with us. I'm not sure that's going to work.