Support for the radicalism of the Black Lives Matter agenda surged a year ago amid the controversial deaths of several blacks at the hands of police in America.
The George Floyd case already has resulted in the conviction of one former officer.
But now that support is falling, according to Civiqs, an online polling company.
According to a commentary in the New York Times, “After Mr. Floyd’s death, Republicans reported much stronger support for Black Lives Matter than they had earlier in 2020. For a party often characterized by its racial insensitivity and antagonism toward racial minorities, this increase in support was striking. But perhaps even more striking is its rapid decline.”
The Post Millennial explained, “Black Lives Matter initially boasted support from individuals in both Democrat and Republican parties, until riots perpetuated by BLM and other far-left groups, were at the forefront of the destruction of U.S. cities. Property damage, arsons, looting, assaults on law enforcement officers and civilians; are only a few examples of the violence our cities endured.”
Republicans quickly withdrew their backing, the report said, when “the BLM founders made it clear they had an alternative agenda and were a Marxist organization with goals of abolishing police departments.”
“The data indicates that prior to the nation’s civil unrest, which was most prominently seen in cities like Seattle, Portland, Wisconsin, and New York, Black Lives Matter gained Republican support after the death of George Floyd. Although because of BLM’s actions, Republican support for the movement was nearly wiped clean by 2021,” it continued.
The Civiqs details revealed “support for Black Lives Matter skyrocketing in 2020 after the police-involved deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd. However, George Floyd’s death sparked massive civil unrest across the United States, and as a result, support for the movement took a steep nosedive.”
That drop in support also involved minority communities, the polling noted.
The details in the Times were from Jennifer Chudy, a teacher at Wellesley College who studies “white racial guilt,” and Hakeem Jefferson, who studies “race and identity” at Stanford.
They said America’s “racial reckoning” featured “protesters” in the streets, books on racism soaring and surveys suggesting “white Americans, many of whom had long opposed efforts to advance the goals of racial equality, were having a change of heart.”
But they explained the “general picture contradicts the idea that the country underwent a racial reckoning. Last summer, as Black Americans turned their sorrow into action, attitudes — especially white attitudes — shifted from tacit support to outright opposition.”
The biggest drops in support appear to be among “Republicans and white Americans, two large and often overlapping groups,” they wrote.
“Like other racial groups, white Americans were more supportive of B.L.M. following Mr. Floyd’s murder. This sentiment, however, did not last long and, as with Republicans, support eventually plunged.”
The result has meant that “aggregate support” for the leftist movement “has waned since last summer.”
“The deterioration in support is noteworthy because we do not merely observe a return to pre-Floyd opinion levels. Rather, since last summer, Republicans and white people have actually become less supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were before the death of George Floyd — a trend that seems unlikely to reverse anytime soon,” they wrote.
The commentary writers speculate that the surge in support likely was because of the horrific nature of what the video of George Floyd’s death revealed.
“Keep in mind, even Donald Trump remarked, after seeing the video, ‘It doesn’t get any worse than that,'” they wrote.
Aggravating the situation was the global pandemic.
“But both the grief of the pandemic and the shock of the video are temporary. And if high levels of support for B.L.M. following George Floyd’s death were surprising, the quick about-face was anything but.”
The authors charge that “the precipitous decline in support, especially among Republicans and white Americans,” was because of “politicization of the issue by elites.”
The polling company explained that support for the BLM movement surged upward to 53% amid 2020’s violence, but has since fallen steadily to about 47% now. Meanwhile, opposition to the ideas, which had been on a slow decline for several years, rocketed upward in 2020 and has been steady since, at about 40%.
Pluralities of several upper age groups oppose it, as do men.
The results show that the divide irreconcilably divides the two political parties, as 87% of Democrats support the movement, and 83% of Republicans oppose it.
The Post Millennial said, “Civiqs data also showed that minorities are more in favor of supporting Black Lives Matter than their white counterparts. However, it’s important to note that the chart shows Black Lives Matter gaining immense support from white people in 2020 but lost support in response to the civil unrest that plagued the nation. Minority support for Black Lives Matter also fell by 2021, although the data shows a less drastic drop than the support from white people.”
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