Jamelle Bouie/NY times:
To Overturn Trump, We Need to Overturn White Supremacy
For that to happen, some monuments — and the historical myths they supported — are going to have to come down.
Another way to put this observation is that police brutality, the proximate cause of these protests, is simply an acute instance of the many ways in which the lives of black Americans (and other groups) are degraded and devalued. And while the most consequential form this degradation takes are material — the Covid-19 crisis, for example, has revealed to many Americans the extent to which black lives are still shaped by a deep racial inequality that leaves them disproportionately vulnerable to illness and premature death — there are also many symbolic statements of black worth, or the lack thereof, out there for all to see.
It’s not overreach, it’s overdue.
Andrea Benjamin/WaPo:
Polls show strong support for the protests — and also for how police handled them
Americans have a history of supporting causes in the abstract, then retreating.
Beyond the direct expression of outrage, one purpose of protests is to sway public opinion. By that standard, the demonstrations against police violence that followed the killing of George Floyd in police custody appear to have been successful — at least by some measures: A Washington Post-Schar School poll released this past week found that 69 percent of Americans think Floyd’s killing signals a broader problem within law enforcement, compared with 29 percent who consider it to be an isolated incident.
That represents a significant change from 2014, when a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 43 percent of Americans felt that the killing of unarmed African American men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City signified a broader problem (compared with 51 percent who thought they were isolated affairs). The new Post-Schar School poll also found that a large majority of Americans, 74 percent, generally back the protests — a trend that extended even to Republicans, 53 percent of whom support them. Echoing other commentators, Slate said the polling suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement “has made staggering gains in just two weeks.”
There may be reasons for optimism among those who, like me, believe strongly in curbing police violence, but we should also be cautious in interpreting the polls. Declarations of a revolution in American consciousness are premature. For one thing, polls also reveal that a surprisingly high proportion of people thought that police behaved reasonably in response to the protests — despite the footage of the violent clearing of Lafayette Square, the shooting of journalists with pepper guns and the countless baton-beatings that police dished out.
Reuters:
Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals - Reuters/Ipsos poll
The poll (here) conducted online of 1,113 U.S. adults showed bipartisan support for many of the Democrats' proposals.
For example, 82% of Americans want to ban police from using chokeholds, 83% want to ban racial profiling, and 92% want federal police to be required to wear body cameras.
It also found that 89% of Americans want to require police to give the people they stop their name, badge number and reason for the stop, and 91% support allowing independent investigations of police departments that show patterns of misconduct.
CNN:
Trump and NASCAR diverge over the place for symbols of America's racist past
The dueling announcements, made within the same three-hour window, illustrate the entrenched position Trump has staked out as the nation continues to reckon with
historic disparities on race and police brutality and as he frets about his diminished political prospects.
Todd Gitlin/WaPo:
This isn’t 1968. It’s 1969.
Today’s movement more closely resembles the antiwar Moratorium protests than the unrest of the previous year.
Yes, there is something of 1968 in 2020. But the 1968 synapse oversimplifies greatly. The uprising underway now signals a vastly more popular and widespread movement reminiscent of the great outpouring of anti-Vietnam War action in October and November 1969, under the aegis of a national project called the Moratorium, which, amid outrage long in the making, cried out: Enough.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
Republicans have no response to tackle racism
In an inadvertently honest moment on Tuesday, McConnell declared, “None of us have had the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with this discrimination, which persists here some 50 years after the 1964 civil rights bill and the 1965 civil rights bill.”
In using the pronoun “us,” McConnell appeared to be speaking on behalf of the 52 non-black Republicans, an odd formulation but a telling acknowledgement that they lack the diversity necessary to appreciate the full American experience. Goodness knows they have made little effort to try to educate themselves about systemic racism — as many continue to deny it even exists.
Geoffrey Skelley/FiveThirtyEight:
The Latest Swing State Polls Look Good For Biden
Hard as it may be to believe, Election Day is now less than five months away. And at this point, former Vice President Joe Biden has a clear lead over President Trump in the national polls. But recent state-level surveys also give Biden an edge over Trump in a number of key swing states. And of course, how Trump and Biden do at the state level matters the most, as that’s how the outcome in the Electoral College will be decided.
NY Times:
Trump’s Actions Rattle the Military World: ‘I Can’t Support the Man’
“The news of wanting to deploy the military domestically has caused a huge sense of outrage among most families I know,” said Sarah Streyder, the director of the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates diplomacy-first foreign policy and works on behalf of military families. “A lot of military families live on Facebook. Social media is very important for this transient community.”
Numerous military spouses concurred. “From what I see from my friends communicating online, spouses have grown much more vocal in opposition to policies,” said Kate Marsh Lord, a Democrat who is married to a member of the Air Force and lives in Virginia but votes in Ohio. “I have seen more spouses speak out on issues of race and lack of leadership than in my entire 15 years as a military spouse.”