This seems like what people on the right do with Trump. He'll say some outlandish or indefensible thing on Twitter and pundits will walk it back and lay out some complex argument to support it. It's not convincing in either case. It's the same with abolish the police. The protesters seem to be very clear that's what thy want and people will go to great lengths explaining oh no what they really want is to divert funding to community groups and improve training they don't actually want to abolish the police. Like what? Is anyone stupid enough to believe this stuff?