"The public" is the oppressor, while the perp is the oppressed. None of this is about "equal outcomes," as those on the right often claim. Instead, it's about inverting the hierarchy that they believe exists. Also, why has "protect our democracy" become the mantra? Because the architects of "reform" understand that citizens will lose faith in law enforcement, schools, courts, the voting system as they "reform" them. In other words, Americans will lose faith in democracy, and thus, the proper antidote is to accuse their political opponents of opposing democracy. This is how we can actually have the spectacle of advocates of police defunding, vote counts that used to take hours now taking days, pushing for voting rights for illegal aliens to cancel out votes of American citizens, removing political opponents from ballots, and on and on becoming the ones who claim that they are the defenders of democracy. As malevolent as it is, you have to give them credit for the execution of this political maneuvering.