From USA Today:
“Rioting is beginning to turn people off to
BLM and protests while Biden has no solution”
Violence erupted last week in
Kenosha, Wisconsin after Jacob Blake was shot in the back by police. The mayhem
followed the usual pattern, with daytime protests devolving into night-time
looting and arson. But rage-fueled anarchy is no substitute for reform-based
policy, and as violence in the streets continues, as it has in Portland, it is
becoming a problem for election-year Democrats. Press outlets have generally
tried to downplay the violent aspects of the protests, sometimes going to
absurd lengths. CNN’s Omar Jimenez reported live from Kenosha in front of
burning businesses while a chyron described the scene as “fiery but mostly
peaceful protests.” The narrative “buildings burn at peaceful protest” is
Orwellian doublethink in action. This would be like reporting that most
protesters were unharmed in Kenosha even though a few were shot and killed. Pro
tip: arson and shootings are news, the rest is context.
Riots are turning people off
to BLM Democrats may have hoped that
the national reckoning on race would be a favorable issue for 2020. But the
street violence has overwhelmed their reform message. CNN’s Don Lemon bemoaned
the fact that the rioting is “showing up in the polling” and “showing up in
focus groups.” He said the “rioting has to stop” because “it is the only thing
right now that is sticking." Lemon
offered no evidence to back up his claim about polls and focus groups, but
other reports support it. The Civiqs tracking poll is particularly interesting
for understanding the dynamics at play. Net approval for the Black Lives Matter
movement peaked back on June 3 and has fallen sharply since. This was just over
a week after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, when riots had begun to
sweep major cities. Among whites, net approval is already negative and headed
downward. And while Democrats and Republicans are as polarized on the issue as
one would expect, white Independents have shown a dramatic falloff in BLM
support, going from a net 24% in early June to net 3% now, which is lower than
before Floyd was killed. Of course BLM is not synonymous with rioting, but this
trend may show the extent to which the issues have been conflated in the public
mind.
“Defund the police” has lost its
luster as a political issue, if it ever really had any. Some cities have cut
police budgets and reallocated funds to social programs, but positive buzz
about this on the national level has vanished. Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden has come out against defunding, while imaginatively charging that
President Trump supports it. This may be a response to poor polling on the
issue even among African Americans and Trump’s solid backing from police unions.
Meanwhile the “defund the police” mural that was painted on 16th Street near
the White House with great fanfare in June quietly vanished over two weeks ago.
Biden needs a concrete
solution Then there are the cases of
bad optics. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pegged the entitlement meter when she
unapologetically claimed that a heavy police presence around her block during
Chicago’s disturbances was necessary because her family has “a right in our
home to live in peace.” Unlike, apparently, everyone else in Chicago. Add to
that the viral video of white demonstrators hounding a white woman outside a
restaurant in Washington’s gentrified Adams Morgan district for not complying
with their demand she raise her first in a black power salute. This drew fire from
Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, who said the performative antics did not have
“anything to do with demands for social justice," and encouraged
restaurants to call the police if it happens again. Even the Washington Post
agreed that this type of bullying “was a misstep that might undermine the
protest movement’s intended message.”
Some commentators have compared
this election season to 1968, when Richard Nixon seized the “law and order”
mantle in the wake of that summer’s racial riots. Vice President Hubert
Humphrey initially tried to straddle the issue, but when he finally gave a
speech in mid-October pledging to crack down on street violence, he alienated
civil rights leaders like Rep. John Conyers, Julian Bond, and Coretta Scott
King. Biden is in a similar fix, made more difficult given the much greater
strength of minority groups and progressives in the contemporary Democratic
party. But his real problem is a white electorate that was less engaged with
the civil rights cause to begin with and is now turning sour on it. Yes, the
riot issue is sticking. President Trump has his answer, sending the FBI and
U.S. Marshals to assist in Kenosha. If Joe Biden has a concrete solution to the
problem of American cities in flames, he’s keeping it to himself.
^ I have been saying this since
the first protesters became violent back in May. It is good to see that more
people are coming to their senses and seeing the same thing. I don’t care what
your agenda is or what your politics are if you use violence of any kind
(destroying monuments, burning cars, destroying businesses, loot places, throw
things or shoot people) then you have lost your right to be called a peaceful
protest and whatever your message was goes out the window. I have seen BLM try
to echo Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (with his March on Washington and having his
relatives speak) but Dr. King used only peaceful civil disobedience to achieve
his goals of Civil Rights. I do not believe he would approve of how his name is
being dragged into all this death and violence. If this violence continues I do
see Trump winning in November because Biden and other Democrats only seem to
fuel the violent protesters rather than trying to restore law and order. It
worked for Nixon in 1968 and it may work for Trump in 2020. ^
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