How Much Is America Changing? (NYT op-ed)

[SoonerPride]

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, there has been a leftward turn. Will it stick?

America is at a racial and political crossroads. Protests over the past two weeks in response to an interrelated set of issues and events — the killing of George Floyd, police brutality, the Covid pandemic, a nation in lockdown, joblessness, a devastated economy and a presidential election — give rise to a key question. Will the Democratic coalition of minorities and liberal whites emerge empowered?

Current polling reveals a shift to the left in the public’s position on key race-related issues. But there are also some potential warning signs for Democrats.

The split reactions to the protests are represented by the contrasting comments of Opal Tometi, a founder of Black Lives Matter, and Ted Cruz, the Republican Senator from Texas.

In an interview in The New Yorker last week, Tometi said:

My view of these protests is that they are different because they are marked by a period that has been deeply personal to millions of Americans and residents of the United States, and that has them more tender or sensitive to what is going on. People who would normally have been at work now have time to go to a protest or a rally, and have time to think about why they have been struggling so much, and they are thinking, “This actually isn’t right and I want to make time, and I have the ability to make time now and make my concerns heard.” So I think it is markedly differently in terms of the volume of demands we are hearing.

On June 3, Cruz spoke on the Senate floor. Careful to note that “there are zero legitimate law enforcement justifications for what happened to George Floyd,” Cruz continued:

What for some was legitimate First Amendment speech speaking out for justice became co-opted, became taken over by violent, criminal radicals ….

There are radicals who cynically took advantage of these protests to sow division, to sow fear, to engage in murder, to engage in violent assaults, to engage in looting, to engage in theft, to engage in intimidation, to engage in fear ….

None of us have a right to burn the cars of police officers, to shatter the shop windows of shops throughout this country, to engage in acts of terror, threatening the lives of our fellow Americans.

So much more at the link. I hope you can read it all. It might be behind a paywall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/opinion/george-floyd-protests-trump.html