If public opinion is everything, Republicans are screwed. A new Washington Post-Schar School poll finds the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd have the support of 74% of Americans, including 87% of Democrats, 76% of independents, and even 53% of Republicans.
The remarkable show of support for the BLM movement and ongoing protests has left Donald Trump and Republicans out in the wilderness as the rest of the nation engages in a complex conversation about race and racism in America.
Along with the finding that nearly three-quarters of Americans support the protest, the poll also showed that more than two-thirds (69%) said Floyd's killing is representative of a systemic law enforcement problem rather than an isolated incident. That view is up 26 points from six years ago when just 43% of Americans saw the killings of unarmed Black men in Ferguson, Missouri, as indicative of a bigger policing issue.
The quickly evolving sentiment of Americans on racial issues and police brutality has left Trump and his party haplessly out of step with the national conversation. Time and again, Trump's incoherence amid the unrest has cast his responses as so very last century. Unleashing federal troops on peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights became almost instantly emblematic of Trump's inability to relate to any sentiment in which he isn't the central focus.
But Trump can't take a hint either, no matter how many polls show him wildly out of step with where the nation is headed as his approvals tank. On Tuesday, Trump once again used his Twitter platform to advance the preposterous notion that the 75-year-old protester pushed to the ground by Buffalo police was an antifa plant.
Whereas Trump has driven so many, often ridiculous, national conversations since announcing his bid for president in 2015, he's made himself almost irrelevant to the country's current dialogue on race, police brutality, and justice. That's not to say that Trump hasn't fueled racism—he clearly has. But his current frame is so off the mark from where two-thirds-plus of the country is, he's like a presidential anachronism, or dead weight, if you will.