I think it's important to not conflate this movement with the defund movement, which merely points at the for example 6 billion dollar NYPD budget and says "is this really necessary?"
Furthermore, the "abolish" movement comes with its own subtleties, that don't necessarily mean "all cops gone tomorrow." An easy exercise to illustrate this to yourself: you can imagine that an alt-right 2a gunsrights activist wearing milita patches, body armor, and holding a rifle, while chanting "abolish the police," has a very different idea in their head of what that means from a liberal social-democrat holding a "black lives matter" sign and chanting "abolish the police," can't you?
If I want a $200k salary I don't start the negotiations at $200k, I start them at $250k knowing that I will be argued down. Likewise, the fear of a radical approach drives those in power to actually implement a productive moderate approach. If all you have is the moderate approach than those in power will implement nothing of substance.
