Support for Black Lives Matter is falling, while Americans’ trust in law enforcement is rising.
The chart: A graph created by FiveThirtyEight captures the trends based on two USA Today/Ipsos national surveys, one from March and the other from last June.
- Trust in law enforcement is at 69%, up from 56%.
- Trust in Black Lives Matter is at 50%, down from 60%.
According to Civiqs, support for Black Lives Matter among voters peaked at 52% last June, shortly after George Floyd’s death spurred nationwide protests, and is now at 47%.
- Meanwhile, opposition to Black Lives Matter has increased from 29% to 40%.
- The biggest change has been among white people, but the loss of faith spanned all the included racial groups.
The reason: FiveThirtyEight politics reporter Alex Samuels suggested the changes in public sentiment may be due to decreases in media coverage and public awareness of racial justice activism.
But consider an opposite explanation: Americans have seen more than enough of Black Lives Matter.
- Large majorities of Americans oppose the campaign to “defund the police,” which Black Lives Matter leads.
- Riots keep breaking out at protests associated with Black Lives Matter.
- And while Black Lives Matter’s Marxist cofounder is spending millions of dollars on real estate, the group says her critics are continuing “a tradition of terror by white supremacists.”
