> police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected
It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with demoralization. Most cops simply want to do their job and not consistently be undermined or called liars.
If you're suggesting that there's a bit of militarization in modern policing I'm not going to argue with you. At some point police departments went from being keepers of the peace to aggressive enforcement units. Many departments even have and utilize surplus military equipment. Personally I'd rather have more Andy Griffith and less Stacey Koon.
However that's not what I meant in terms of undermining. If a DA undermines the work of the police force they are supposed to support that has negative consequences on the actions of the policing body. This would happen regardless of whether or not the policing body were true peace keepers or aggressors. I would argue that in fact the DAs actions affect the PD-types-we-like more than the bully types.
The job of the DA isn't to support the police department.
A DA needs to allocate resources towards cases that are significant to the community, aligned with the desires of the people who voted the DA into office.
I have a boss who doesn't always "support" what I think should be done. And that's fine, because he has different goals that he tries to communicate to my team, but in the end, he answers to his boss. I don't have the full picture on why he makes decisions, how he allocates budgets etc. I just have insights from what he tells me and what I see.
But I'm a professional, and I don't get my feelings hurt when my boss tells me to do something different, or to do something I don't agree with. Yet cops are just different. In the US they get kid glove treatment when they break the law, either from fellow cops or the courts. They get idolized by TV shows as the only thing keeping people safe when they do little to actually prevent crime. And they continue to claim being underfunded, overworked, under appreciated and under constant threat of death at the hands of "civilians", since they tend to break communities into three categories (perps, civilians, and cops).
It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with demoralization. Most cops simply want to do their job and not consistently be undermined or called liars.