fivethirtyeight--2020-06-02--Have Americans’ Views On Race Relations And Police Brutality Changed Since Ferguson?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight ’ s weekly politics chat .
The transcript below has been lightly edited .
sarah ( Sarah Frostenson , politics editor ) : Over the past week , there were a number of demonstrations across the U.S. , protesting the death of George Floyd , a black man who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis .
Videotape captured a white police officer kneeling on Floyd ’ s neck , ignoring repeated cries from Floyd saying , “ I can ’ t breathe.
” But while the majority of Americans ( 61 percent ) think Floyd ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll , there is less agreement on how people are processing the protests .
Fifty-one percent of Americans in that same poll described the unrest in Minneapolis as “ mostly violent riots , ” while just 10 percent described it as “ mostly peaceful protests.
” A quarter said it was a mix .
In many ways , what happened in the wake of Floyd ’ s death — the police officer was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday — felt like a watershed moment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths at the hands of police .
Police chiefs across the nation condemned what happened , as did many conservative news personalities , but in the aftermath of the protests , there has been , as Wesley Lowery of “ 60 Minutes ” describes , a desire to ascribe “ simple narratives to explain complicated realities.
” In other words , the protests may risk dividing Americans along familiar partisan and racial fault lines .
The subject of race relations in America is complex , but what can we say , at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a result of Floyd ’ s death ?
Are Americans reacting differently from how they did in 2014 , after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson , Missouri ?
How have Americans changed — or not changed — on issues of police violence and racial relations since then ?
To start , how is this moment different ?
john.sides ( John Sides , political science professor at Vanderbilt University ) : If anything , Americans have become more pessimistic about race relations , according to Gallup polling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gallup has asked since the early 2000s whether relations between white people and black people are good or bad .
And among African Americans , the percentage who said “ very good ” or “ somewhat good ” fell from 66 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2018 .
Views among white Americans are also less positive than they were in 2013 , but they ’ re still higher than views among African Americans , as you can see in the chart below .
maggie ( Maggie Koerth , senior science writer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in how white people , particularly conservative white people , and police officers are approaching Floyd ’ s death .
I first noticed that earlier last week , when conservative family members started reaching out to tell me they agreed with the protesters and thought the police officer responsible for Floyd ’ s death should be arrested , including the officer ’ s colleagues who stood by and watched without intervening .
And now we ’ ve seen things like police officers in other cities taking the knee … something I couldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
clare.malone ( Clare Malone , senior political writer ) : A couple of things are at work : 1 ) The video of Floyd ’ s death is pretty unambiguous .
We know what happened .
That wasn ’ t the case in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson , and in some other high-profile deaths by police .
2 ) We ’ re in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and economic meltdown .
Floyd himself was allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $ 20 bill , and I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over his death as indicative of the spot we ’ re in .
People have been grappling with death for months .
They ’ re angsty and in lockdown , social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus .
There are a LOT of emotions swirling in America .
sarah : Right , there ’ s both this unprecedented moment we ’ re in , as Clare says , and the fact that views on race relations in the U.S. had already taken a sharp downturn after 2014 during Obama ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decisions in Brown ’ s and Eric Garner ’ s cases found the police officers not guilty .
And as John pointed out earlier , these numbers haven ’ t exactly bounced back either .
perry ( Perry Bacon Jr. , senior writer ) : People see race relations poorly because the Black Lives Matter movement really gained prominence in 2014 , Trump emerged as a presidential candidate the same year , and we ’ ve had racialized conflict ever since .
In other words , people see race relations as poor because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is also covering these conflicts in the frame of race conflict a lot , unlike it did pre-2014 .
clare.malone : Yeah , there ’ s probably more nuance in the coverage of these protests and deaths .
maggie : Than previous ones , you mean ?
I ’ d agree with that , for sure .
clare.malone : First , we ’ ve now had a few years of these videos that make people — namely , white people — who aren ’ t as intimately acquainted with police violence , feel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They are emotionally tugged .
And they are then intellectually tugged into the conversation , and then , finally , in an activist way , tugged into actual protests .
We ’ re basically seeing a maturation of the conversation , in part because more people have become aware of the issue and then , I think , the media has matured ( slightly ) in its coverage .
And what I mean by that is that there ’ s more awareness of what it means to call something a “ riot.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ motivates looting/anger/violent reactions to police in a protest .
I don ’ t think you get that without America having had a few years of just seeing these videos over and over again .
It ’ s horrific that we ’ ve had years of videos of these deaths at the hands of police .
But I think that it has made the problem more understood .
maggie : There ’ s also an element of the heavy-handed response against the press having an impact on how the protests are covered .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local TV news reporter covering Black Lives Matter protests in Minnesota a few years ago and framing them largely as a rude , maybe scary , inconvenience .
( Which is what I , as a local citizen , saw the media do . )
Now , though , when the police are shooting reporters with munitions live on TV , well … the conversation changes .
sarah : Yeah , this piece from Slate caught my eye because , while it pointed out that the police ’ s public response to Floyd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police officers have condemned the officer and called for him to be charged — the overall police response to protesters hasn ’ t actually been all that different .
maggie : Yeah .
We just published a story on Monday with The Marshall Project , about how difficult it is to change police norms when it comes to dealing with protests — even in the face of 50 years ’ worth of evidence .
clare.malone : Of course , you ’ ve also got forces like the Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some nutty stuff/rhetoric out there too … john.sides : This is not my area of expertise , but there is research indicating that police respond more harshly to protests that are specifically reacting to police brutality .
sarah : What do we know so far about how Americans are reacting to the protests , though ?
john.sides : Attitudes toward the protests are mixed .
That Yahoo News/YouGov poll you mentioned earlier , Sarah , showed big differences in people ’ s views of the protests .
For example , 33 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ mostly violent riots , ” but 73 percent of Republicans said this .
There were also pretty big differences in whether respondents said the riots reflected genuine desire to hold police accountable versus just a long-standing bias against the police .
Republicans were 43 percentage points more likely to say it ’ s just bias .
clare.malone : Yeah , I mean , I ’ ve even seen the police described as “ counterprotesters.
” sarah : It is definitely a weird and troubling dynamic that the organization/people being protested ( i.e.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones responsible for ensuring the safety of the protesters .
clare.malone : Right , the protests are about police violence .
Yet , in some instances , police feel personally ( and physically ) attacked by protesters .
There ’ s also an element of politics here , though , in that the police in the Trump era have been talked about more and more as a Trump constituency — the law-and-order constituency — and maybe been given great authority as a result .
But then some cops dismiss the protesters as just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the left ) that sees them as the enemy .
It ’ s troubling when the government has a monopoly on legalized violence and that the wielders of that violence — the police — aren ’ t in many , many cases exercising it in moderation .
The videos of police cars ramming protesters , the pepper-spraying of people who aren ’ t being violent , etc .
It ’ s a bad dynamic .
john.sides : The protests are exactly the kind of event where you ’ re going to see these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too .
They ’ re diffuse events , varying within and across cities .
Additionally , it is not always clear what is happening and who is responsible .
Are these people looters or political protesters ?
So ordinary Americans are going to take cues from news coverage and their party ’ s political leaders to make sense of events .
sarah : Yeah , that Yahoo News/YouGov poll seems to point to this quite clearly .
Although Americans have shifted from 2014 in how they view police violence , they still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes to thinking about the unrest that has resulted .
Do we have a good explanation for that disconnect ?
john.sides : It is one thing to ask Americans about an event with such clear video documentation , like Floyd ’ s death .
That helps to eliminate ambiguity , and it ’ s why Americans of both parties agree with the firing of the officers involved , according to that same poll .
But when it comes to the larger issue of police treatment of African Americans , there ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the question of whether deaths of African Americans during encounters with police are isolated incidents or part of a broader problem , 84 percent of Democrats say it ’ s part of a broader problem compared with just 32 percent of Republicans .
sarah : Right , and this poll from Ipsos MORI found a strong racial divide as well .
Seventy-eight percent of black Americans polled said they didn ’ t think white Americans understood the level of discrimination they face in their lives .
Has this disconnect on racial relations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and black Americans or between Democrats and Republicans — gotten worse since 2014 ?
Or has it remained about the same ?
john.sides : Overall , attitudes about race line up much more with partisanship than they used to .
Democrats and Republicans increasingly disagree on crucial questions like how much racial inequality is due to structural forces like discrimination .
What my research with Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck found is that views on issues like racial inequality were one of the key factors that better predicted vote choice between Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found this played an even larger role than it did in 2012 , predicting vote choice between President Obama and Mitt Romney .
And that probably had to do with the fact that the 2016 campaign focused a great deal on racial issues .
clare.malone : The idea that eight years of a black , Democratic president helped accelerate voter awareness of where the parties stood on racial issues is fascinating .
And the fact that Trump made a lot of racial subtext in the past four years has done a lot to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and what that means for both parties .
perry : Right , in some ways believing that there is structural racial discrimination is part of being a Democrat now .
john.sides : And it really didn ’ t use to be this way .
Tesler has done some important work on this , finding that there were larger party divides on whether “ 12 Years a Slave ” deserved an Oscar than on the 1995 O.J .
Simpson verdict .
sarah : Let ’ s shift gears a little and talk about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of coverage on how Trump has been notably silent as protests raged outside the White House and across the country .
But on Monday , he berated governors for not being tough enough , telling them they have to step up the military response against the protesters and “ dominate.
” Clare wrote on Friday about how some of Trump ’ s law-and-order rhetoric might be shortsighted here in 2020 .
So where do we think the conversation is headed next ?
Biden has his own complications with taking black Americans for granted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God .
And even President Obama was criticized for not doing enough in response to the Ferguson protests in 2014 .
What are the political fault lines here moving forward ?
perry : Biden will probably tread carefully — he is trying to stay near what he thinks is the center of the electorate , so that means he will probably want to try hard to not offend the police or black people .
I wouldn ’ t expect his comments on Floyd ’ s death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They seem to be younger and more liberal and want aggressive , transformative rhetoric and policies .
All of this probably does affect his campaign , though .
For instance , it ’ s probably hard for him to pick Sen. Amy Klobuchar as his vice president now .
She is being criticized for refusing to file charges against police officers who killed civilians when she was the top prosecutor in the Minneapolis area .
So it is hard to imagine Biden choosing her as his running mate given the firestorm around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Not to mention that some prominent black Democrats , even before Floyd ’ s death , were already wary of Klobuchar .
Biden himself will also have to speak about issues of racial inequality more , and he may not be particularly effective at that .
john.sides : Biden will likely turn this into another attack on Trump ’ s leadership , though — similar to his attacks on Trump ’ s handling of the coronavirus pandemic or the economy .
You could imagine him talking about how Trump sat in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House and chastising him for trying to blame everything on governors .
Biden has already highlighted his willingness to talk directly with the protesters rather than hunkering down .
And that poses a challenge for Trump .
He talked about ending American carnage in his inaugural address .
But how does he campaign when the carnage has only grown worse since he became president ?
It ’ s not that Trump is directly responsible for the smashed windows or fires .
It ’ s just that Americans sometimes blame incumbent officeholders for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones out of their direct control .
maggie : So Trump is more likely to be punished electorally for the fact that disruption is happening generally than for anything he specifically did or did not do about it ?
perry : I think , like COVID-19 , it is really hard to see all of this mattering much electorally .
The polls are just not moving much .
I don ’ t think voters are learning a ton of new information about Trump from this .
clare.malone : For Trump , his lack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people of both parties see as unjust — is more an example of the leadership void people have been seeing from him on COVID-19 .
john.sides : Figuring out the exact electoral impact is hard .
There is evidence that violent protests may have hurt Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey in 1968 , even as nonviolent protests helped him ( and may have given a long-lasting boost to Democrats ) .
But research on the violent protests after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 found that the protests moved public opinion in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have a lot of cases to generalize from .
Moreover , as Clare and others have rightly pointed out , Trump is the incumbent here , which complicates the analogy to 1968. sarah : Right , it ’ s hard to know where things will go from here , but it certainly seems as if Floyd ’ s death is a turning point in the conversation around police brutality .
It ’ s just an open question of where we go from here .

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Over the past week, there were a number of demonstrations across the U.S., protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. Videotape captured a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck, ignoring repeated cries from Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe.”
But while the majority of Americans (61 percent) think Floyd’s race played a significant role, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll, there is less agreement on how people are processing the protests. Fifty-one percent of Americans in that same poll described the unrest in Minneapolis as “mostly violent riots,” while just 10 percent described it as “mostly peaceful protests.” A quarter said it was a mix.
In many ways, what happened in the wake of Floyd’s death — the police officer was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday — felt like a watershed moment in how the majority of Americans view deaths at the hands of police. Police chiefs across the nation condemned what happened, as did many conservative news personalities, but in the aftermath of the protests, there has been, as Wesley Lowery of “60 Minutes” describes, a desire to ascribe “simple narratives to explain complicated realities.” In other words, the protests may risk dividing Americans along familiar partisan and racial fault lines.
The subject of race relations in America is complex, but what can we say, at this point, about what has happened as a result of Floyd’s death? Are Americans reacting differently from how they did in 2014, after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri? How have Americans changed — or not changed — on issues of police violence and racial relations since then?
To start, how is this moment different?
john.sides (John Sides, political science professor at Vanderbilt University): If anything, Americans have become more pessimistic about race relations, according to Gallup polling conducted before Floyd’s death.
Gallup has asked since the early 2000s whether relations between white people and black people are good or bad. And among African Americans, the percentage who said “very good” or “somewhat good” fell from 66 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2018. Views among white Americans are also less positive than they were in 2013, but they’re still higher than views among African Americans, as you can see in the chart below.
maggie (Maggie Koerth, senior science writer): I see some big differences in how white people, particularly conservative white people, and police officers are approaching Floyd’s death. I first noticed that earlier last week, when conservative family members started reaching out to tell me they agreed with the protesters and thought the police officer responsible for Floyd’s death should be arrested, including the officer’s colleagues who stood by and watched without intervening. And now we’ve seen things like police officers in other cities taking the knee … something I couldn’t have imagined happening a year ago.
clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): A couple of things are at work: 1) The video of Floyd’s death is pretty unambiguous. We know what happened. That wasn’t the case in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and in some other high-profile deaths by police. 2) We’re in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and economic meltdown. Floyd himself was allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill, and I think a lot of people see the protests over his death as indicative of the spot we’re in. People have been grappling with death for months. They’re angsty and in lockdown, social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus. There are a LOT of emotions swirling in America.
sarah: Right, there’s both this unprecedented moment we’re in, as Clare says, and the fact that views on race relations in the U.S. had already taken a sharp downturn after 2014 during Obama’s presidency, after both the grand jury decisions in Brown’s and Eric Garner’s cases found the police officers not guilty. And as John pointed out earlier, these numbers haven’t exactly bounced back either.
perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): People see race relations poorly because the Black Lives Matter movement really gained prominence in 2014, Trump emerged as a presidential candidate the same year, and we’ve had racialized conflict ever since.
In other words, people see race relations as poor because they are poor!
The news media is also covering these conflicts in the frame of race conflict a lot, unlike it did pre-2014.
clare.malone: Yeah, there’s probably more nuance in the coverage of these protests and deaths.
maggie: Than previous ones, you mean? I’d agree with that, for sure.
clare.malone: First, we’ve now had a few years of these videos that make people — namely, white people — who aren’t as intimately acquainted with police violence, feel some digital proximity to those events. They are emotionally tugged. And they are then intellectually tugged into the conversation, and then, finally, in an activist way, tugged into actual protests. We’re basically seeing a maturation of the conversation, in part because more people have become aware of the issue and then, I think, the media has matured (slightly) in its coverage.
And what I mean by that is that there’s more awareness of what it means to call something a “riot.” There’s more talk about what motivates looting/anger/violent reactions to police in a protest.
I don’t think you get that without America having had a few years of just seeing these videos over and over again. It’s horrific that we’ve had years of videos of these deaths at the hands of police. But I think that it has made the problem more understood.
maggie: There’s also an element of the heavy-handed response against the press having an impact on how the protests are covered. It’s one thing to be a local TV news reporter covering Black Lives Matter protests in Minnesota a few years ago and framing them largely as a rude, maybe scary, inconvenience. (Which is what I, as a local citizen, saw the media do.) Now, though, when the police are shooting reporters with munitions live on TV, well … the conversation changes.
sarah: Yeah, this piece from Slate caught my eye because, while it pointed out that the police’s public response to Floyd’s death has been different — police officers have condemned the officer and called for him to be charged — the overall police response to protesters hasn’t actually been all that different.
maggie: Yeah. We just published a story on Monday with The Marshall Project, about how difficult it is to change police norms when it comes to dealing with protests — even in the face of 50 years’ worth of evidence.
clare.malone: Of course, you’ve also got forces like the Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York City that feel pretty free to put some nutty stuff/rhetoric out there too …
john.sides: This is not my area of expertise, but there is research indicating that police respond more harshly to protests that are specifically reacting to police brutality.
sarah: What do we know so far about how Americans are reacting to the protests, though?
john.sides: Attitudes toward the protests are mixed. That Yahoo News/YouGov poll you mentioned earlier, Sarah, showed big differences in people’s views of the protests. For example, 33 percent of Democrats described the protests in Minneapolis as “mostly violent riots,” but 73 percent of Republicans said this.
There were also pretty big differences in whether respondents said the riots reflected genuine desire to hold police accountable versus just a long-standing bias against the police. Republicans were 43 percentage points more likely to say it’s just bias.
clare.malone: Yeah, I mean, I’ve even seen the police described as “counterprotesters.”
sarah: It is definitely a weird and troubling dynamic that the organization/people being protested (i.e., the police) are also the ones responsible for ensuring the safety of the protesters.
clare.malone: Right, the protests are about police violence. Yet, in some instances, police feel personally (and physically) attacked by protesters. There’s also an element of politics here, though, in that the police in the Trump era have been talked about more and more as a Trump constituency — the law-and-order constituency — and maybe been given great authority as a result. But then some cops dismiss the protesters as just part of a political dynamic (on the left) that sees them as the enemy.
It’s troubling when the government has a monopoly on legalized violence and that the wielders of that violence — the police — aren’t in many, many cases exercising it in moderation. The videos of police cars ramming protesters, the pepper-spraying of people who aren’t being violent, etc. It’s a bad dynamic.
john.sides: The protests are exactly the kind of event where you’re going to see these differences play out by party and race, too. They’re diffuse events, varying within and across cities. Additionally, it is not always clear what is happening and who is responsible. Are these people looters or political protesters? So ordinary Americans are going to take cues from news coverage and their party’s political leaders to make sense of events.
sarah: Yeah, that Yahoo News/YouGov poll seems to point to this quite clearly. Although Americans have shifted from 2014 in how they view police violence, they still rely on their partisan lenses when it comes to thinking about the unrest that has resulted. Do we have a good explanation for that disconnect?
john.sides: It is one thing to ask Americans about an event with such clear video documentation, like Floyd’s death. That helps to eliminate ambiguity, and it’s why Americans of both parties agree with the firing of the officers involved, according to that same poll. But when it comes to the larger issue of police treatment of African Americans, there’s a lot less agreement. For example, on the question of whether deaths of African Americans during encounters with police are isolated incidents or part of a broader problem, 84 percent of Democrats say it’s part of a broader problem compared with just 32 percent of Republicans.
sarah: Right, and this poll from Ipsos MORI found a strong racial divide as well. Seventy-eight percent of black Americans polled said they didn’t think white Americans understood the level of discrimination they face in their lives.
Has this disconnect on racial relations in the U.S. — especially between white and black Americans or between Democrats and Republicans — gotten worse since 2014? Or has it remained about the same?
john.sides: Overall, attitudes about race line up much more with partisanship than they used to. Democrats and Republicans increasingly disagree on crucial questions like how much racial inequality is due to structural forces like discrimination. What my research with Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck found is that views on issues like racial inequality were one of the key factors that better predicted vote choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. We found this played an even larger role than it did in 2012, predicting vote choice between President Obama and Mitt Romney. And that probably had to do with the fact that the 2016 campaign focused a great deal on racial issues.
clare.malone: The idea that eight years of a black, Democratic president helped accelerate voter awareness of where the parties stood on racial issues is fascinating. And the fact that Trump made a lot of racial subtext in the past four years has done a lot to keep the focus on race in politics and what that means for both parties.
perry: Right, in some ways believing that there is structural racial discrimination is part of being a Democrat now.
john.sides: And it really didn’t use to be this way. Tesler has done some important work on this, finding that there were larger party divides on whether “12 Years a Slave” deserved an Oscar than on the 1995 O.J. Simpson verdict.
sarah: Let’s shift gears a little and talk about the administration. There’s a lot of coverage on how Trump has been notably silent as protests raged outside the White House and across the country. But on Monday, he berated governors for not being tough enough, telling them they have to step up the military response against the protesters and “dominate.”
Clare wrote on Friday about how some of Trump’s law-and-order rhetoric might be shortsighted here in 2020. So where do we think the conversation is headed next?
Biden has his own complications with taking black Americans for granted, as we saw in his interview with the Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God. And even President Obama was criticized for not doing enough in response to the Ferguson protests in 2014.
What are the political fault lines here moving forward?
perry: Biden will probably tread carefully — he is trying to stay near what he thinks is the center of the electorate, so that means he will probably want to try hard to not offend the police or black people. I wouldn’t expect his comments on Floyd’s death to resonate with the protesters, though. They seem to be younger and more liberal and want aggressive, transformative rhetoric and policies.
All of this probably does affect his campaign, though. For instance, it’s probably hard for him to pick Sen. Amy Klobuchar as his vice president now. She is being criticized for refusing to file charges against police officers who killed civilians when she was the top prosecutor in the Minneapolis area. So it is hard to imagine Biden choosing her as his running mate given the firestorm around criminal justice issues in her home state. Not to mention that some prominent black Democrats, even before Floyd’s death, were already wary of Klobuchar.
Biden himself will also have to speak about issues of racial inequality more, and he may not be particularly effective at that.
john.sides: Biden will likely turn this into another attack on Trump’s leadership, though — similar to his attacks on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic or the economy. You could imagine him talking about how Trump sat in the bunker with the lights off at the White House and chastising him for trying to blame everything on governors. Biden has already highlighted his willingness to talk directly with the protesters rather than hunkering down.
And that poses a challenge for Trump. He talked about ending American carnage in his inaugural address. But how does he campaign when the carnage has only grown worse since he became president?
It’s not that Trump is directly responsible for the smashed windows or fires. It’s just that Americans sometimes blame incumbent officeholders for a wide array of problems, even ones out of their direct control.
maggie: So Trump is more likely to be punished electorally for the fact that disruption is happening generally than for anything he specifically did or did not do about it?
perry: I think, like COVID-19, it is really hard to see all of this mattering much electorally. The polls are just not moving much. I don’t think voters are learning a ton of new information about Trump from this.
clare.malone: For Trump, his lack of response to this — a death that people of both parties see as unjust — is more an example of the leadership void people have been seeing from him on COVID-19.
john.sides: Figuring out the exact electoral impact is hard. There is evidence that violent protests may have hurt Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey in 1968, even as nonviolent protests helped him (and may have given a long-lasting boost to Democrats). But research on the violent protests after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 found that the protests moved public opinion in a liberal direction. We just don’t have a lot of cases to generalize from. Moreover, as Clare and others have rightly pointed out, Trump is the incumbent here, which complicates the analogy to 1968.
sarah: Right, it’s hard to know where things will go from here, but it certainly seems as if Floyd’s death is a turning point in the conversation around police brutality. It’s just an open question of where we go from here.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: The data behind police violence


fivethirtyeight--2020-06-02--How Lots Of White Democrats Ended Up At The Protests

Americans around the country are protesting the death of George Floyd , a 46-year-old black man who was killed last week in Minneapolis by a white police officer , as well as other recent instances where black civilians died at the hands of police officers .
But while the protests are largely about the deaths of black people , the protests themselves are not all-black events — there have been plenty of white people at the demonstrations .
These white protesters are representative of a broader phenomenon , and an important way in which the country has changed since the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2013 .
White Americans , particularly those who are younger , college-educated or liberal-leaning , have shifted their views on racial issues in the last several years , increasingly saying that they view the United States and many of its policies as discriminatory against black people .
This shift didn ’ t happen in the last few weeks — FiveThirtyEight wrote about it in early 2018 , for example , and Vox dubbed it “ the Great Awokening ” about a year later .
But these protests and the white presence at them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of data that shows many white Americans have become increasingly conscious of discrimination against black Americans — particularly in the years since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012 and Michael Brown was shot and killed in 2014 .
Here are some of the most important findings from recent polls about the racial views of white Americans in particular , but also other Americans , and how those views have shifted over the last several years .
Eighty-eight percent of white Democrats said that police treat black Americans less fairly than white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Center poll conducted last year .
That ’ s similar to the number of black Americans ( 84 percent ) and black Democrats ( 86 percent ) who expressed that view .
Similarly , 86 percent of white Democrats said they thought the overall criminal justice system is unfair to black people — right in line with the share of black Americans ( 87 percent ) and black Democrats ( 90 percent ) who said the same .
Eighty-four percent of white Democrats and 78 percent of black Americans said they thought the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was part of a broader pattern , not a series of isolated incidents , according to a 2019 YouGov survey .
You can see the shift over time in this Pew question we highlighted in that 2018 article , about whether the country “ needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites ” : The trend also shows up in this General Social Survey question about the government ’ s role in addressing past discrimination against black Americans : There is a wide gulf between white Democrats and white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white Democrats being much more likely than white Republicans to see evidence of discrimination against black people .
But it ’ s worth noting that on criminal justice issues specifically , a fairly large bloc of white Republicans do see evidence of discrimination based on race .
Forty-three percent of white Republicans said that the police treat black people unfairly compared to white people , according to that same 2019 Pew survey .
And 39 percent of white Republicans in that poll said the criminal justice system as a whole is unfair to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that the majority of white Republicans ( 69 percent ) said that police killings of black Americans were isolated incidents , 31 percent viewed them as part of a broader trend .
We don ’ t yet have many polls conducted since Floyd was killed , but a Yahoo/YouGov survey released amid the protests over the weekend showed similar numbers : 39 percent of all Republicans said they thought the criminal justice system treats white people better than black people .
And a plurality of Republicans , 48 percent , said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and black people equally , compared to 42 percent who thought both groups got the same treatment .
That there is some wariness of the criminal justice system among Republicans shouldn ’ t be that surprising — after all , in 2018 President Trump signed into a law a criminal justice reform package .
As you saw in the chart above , in 2009 , 50 percent of white Democrats agreed with the idea that “ the country needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites , ” according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that number had increased to 80 percent .
Similar shifts are evident on other policy questions regarding race and inequality .
The number of white Democrats who support reparations for black Americans who are descended from enslaved people has increased from 11 percent in 2002 to 33 percent in 2019 , according to Gallup polling .
White Americans increasingly agree with the notions that “ black people have gotten less than they deserve ” and “ slavery and discrimination still hold black people back today , ” according research by Sean McElwee of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats saw almost as much evidence of racism as black Americans on an extensive range of issues , according to the 2019 Pew survey .
This shift and focus among white Democrats isn ’ t just about racial issues that primarily affect black Americans .
White Democrats also seem to have increasingly positive views of immigrants , perhaps reacting to Trump ’ s efforts to curtail immigration .
And surveys suggest Democrats , including men , see substantial evidence of gender discrimination negatively affecting women , perhaps a result of the # MeToo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in contrast to policing and criminal justice , there ’ s still a big gap between white Republicans and white Democrats on most other questions about discrimation against black Americans .
For example , 64 percent of white Democrats said that America has not gone far enough to give black Americans equal rights , according to the 2019 Pew survey .
Just 15 percent of white Republicans held this view , while 31 percent said America had gone too far in trying to give black people equal rights .
Sixty percent of white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s voting system is unfair to black Americans , compared to 7 percent of white Republicans .
Republicans simply haven ’ t shifted all that much on these issues in the years since the Black Lives Matter movement became a national issue .
According to the 2017 Pew survey , 36 percent of Republicans said the country needs to make changes to ensure black Americans have the same rights as white ones , similar to the 30 percent who said that in 2009 .
Nine percent of Republicans in 2009 said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans can ’ t get ahead in America ; that number was up only slightly , to 14 percent , eight years later .
According to the Pew poll from 2017 , 90 percent of black Democrats said the country needs to make changes to give black Americans equal rights to whites , compared to 81 percent in 2009 .
Among Hispanic Democrats , that number surged from 49 percent in 2009 to 76 percent in 2017 .
In 2013 , 47 percent of black Americans and 61 percent of Hispanic Americans described @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are treated in American society , according to Gallup polling .
By 2018 , those numbers had dipped to 18 percent among black Americans and 39 percent among Hispanic Americans .
Support among black Americans for reparations increased from 55 percent in 2002 to 73 percent in last year , according to the 2019 Gallup survey .
According to the 2019 Pew survey , 55 percent of white people over age 65 think too much attention is being paid to race and racial issues in America .
So do 56 percent of white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or less .
In contrast , a majority of white people with a bachelor ’ s degree or more either think America is discussing racial issues an appropriate amount or that the nation isn ’ t talking about them enough .
A majority of white people between 18 and 49 also hold this view .
Research from Data for Progress suggests that white millennials are much more likely than older white people to agree that black people in America face structural racial discrimination .
You are probably thinking that white people with bachelor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are increasingly aligned with Democrats , so if many college-educated white people and white people under 50 are Democrats , could they have simply have adjusted their racial views to match the broader Democratic Party ?
But there ’ s some evidence that people are increasingly choosing which party they align with based on racial issues .
So it might also be the case that some white people under 50 and college-educated white people see a lot of racial discrimination in America , and that causes them to align with Democrats , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much attention are aligning with the GOP .
This article has focused on white people , but we should emphasize that many of these protests are organized and spearheaded by black leaders , with many black people in attendance , as well as people of other races .
None of this data is meant to downplay the role of that black leadership , or suggest that the protests are somehow better or more important because white people are attending .
And the white presence at these protests is hardly unprecedented — there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil rights activism of the 1960s .
All that said , the protests are a vivid illustration of a broader shift in American politics : The Democratic Party is increasingly a coalition of people of all races pushing for racial equality .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

Americans around the country are protesting the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who was killed last week in Minneapolis by a white police officer, as well as other recent instances where black civilians died at the hands of police officers. But while the protests are largely about the deaths of black people, the protests themselves are not all-black events — there have been plenty of white people at the demonstrations. These white protesters are representative of a broader phenomenon, and an important way in which the country has changed since the Black Lives Matter movement first emerged in 2013.
White Americans, particularly those who are younger, college-educated or liberal-leaning, have shifted their views on racial issues in the last several years, increasingly saying that they view the United States and many of its policies as discriminatory against black people.
This shift didn’t happen in the last few weeks — FiveThirtyEight wrote about it in early 2018, for example, and Vox dubbed it “the Great Awokening” about a year later. But these protests and the white presence at them are another point in the growing body of data that shows many white Americans have become increasingly conscious of discrimination against black Americans — particularly in the years since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012 and Michael Brown was shot and killed in 2014.
Here are some of the most important findings from recent polls about the racial views of white Americans in particular, but also other Americans, and how those views have shifted over the last several years.
White Democrats share black Americans’ views on police
Eighty-eight percent of white Democrats said that police treat black Americans less fairly than white Americans, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted last year. That’s similar to the number of black Americans (84 percent) and black Democrats (86 percent) who expressed that view. Similarly, 86 percent of white Democrats said they thought the overall criminal justice system is unfair to black people — right in line with the share of black Americans (87 percent) and black Democrats (90 percent) who said the same.
Eighty-four percent of white Democrats and 78 percent of black Americans said they thought the killings of black Americans by police officers was part of a broader pattern, not a series of isolated incidents, according to a 2019 YouGov survey.
You can see the shift over time in this Pew question we highlighted in that 2018 article, about whether the country “needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites” :
The trend also shows up in this General Social Survey question about the government’s role in addressing past discrimination against black Americans:
Many Republicans share policing concerns
There is a wide gulf between white Democrats and white Republicans on most racial issues, with white Democrats being much more likely than white Republicans to see evidence of discrimination against black people. But it’s worth noting that on criminal justice issues specifically, a fairly large bloc of white Republicans do see evidence of discrimination based on race.
Forty-three percent of white Republicans said that the police treat black people unfairly compared to white people, according to that same 2019 Pew survey. And 39 percent of white Republicans in that poll said the criminal justice system as a whole is unfair to black Americans. While the YouGov survey found that the majority of white Republicans (69 percent) said that police killings of black Americans were isolated incidents, 31 percent viewed them as part of a broader trend.
We don’t yet have many polls conducted since Floyd was killed, but a Yahoo/YouGov survey released amid the protests over the weekend showed similar numbers: 39 percent of all Republicans said they thought the criminal justice system treats white people better than black people. And a plurality of Republicans, 48 percent, said that the police don’t treat white and black people equally, compared to 42 percent who thought both groups got the same treatment. That there is some wariness of the criminal justice system among Republicans shouldn’t be that surprising — after all, in 2018 President Trump signed into a law a criminal justice reform package.
White Democrats focus on broader inequality
As you saw in the chart above, in 2009, 50 percent of white Democrats agreed with the idea that “the country needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites,” according to Pew polling. By 2017, that number had increased to 80 percent. Similar shifts are evident on other policy questions regarding race and inequality. The number of white Democrats who support reparations for black Americans who are descended from enslaved people has increased from 11 percent in 2002 to 33 percent in 2019, according to Gallup polling.
White Americans increasingly agree with the notions that “black people have gotten less than they deserve” and “slavery and discrimination still hold black people back today,” according research by Sean McElwee of the left-leaning Data for Progress. White Democrats saw almost as much evidence of racism as black Americans on an extensive range of issues, according to the 2019 Pew survey.
This shift and focus among white Democrats isn’t just about racial issues that primarily affect black Americans. White Democrats also seem to have increasingly positive views of immigrants, perhaps reacting to Trump’s efforts to curtail immigration. And surveys suggest Democrats, including men, see substantial evidence of gender discrimination negatively affecting women, perhaps a result of the #MeToo movement.
But, as mentioned, in contrast to policing and criminal justice, there’s still a big gap between white Republicans and white Democrats on most other questions about discrimation against black Americans. For example, 64 percent of white Democrats said that America has not gone far enough to give black Americans equal rights, according to the 2019 Pew survey. Just 15 percent of white Republicans held this view, while 31 percent said America had gone too far in trying to give black people equal rights. Sixty percent of white Democrats in that survey felt that America’s voting system is unfair to black Americans, compared to 7 percent of white Republicans.
Republicans simply haven’t shifted all that much on these issues in the years since the Black Lives Matter movement became a national issue. According to the 2017 Pew survey, 36 percent of Republicans said the country needs to make changes to ensure black Americans have the same rights as white ones, similar to the 30 percent who said that in 2009. Nine percent of Republicans in 2009 said that racial discrimination was the main reason black Americans can’t get ahead in America; that number was up only slightly, to 14 percent, eight years later.
Nonwhite Democrats are shifting a bit too
According to the Pew poll from 2017, 90 percent of black Democrats said the country needs to make changes to give black Americans equal rights to whites, compared to 81 percent in 2009. Among Hispanic Democrats, that number surged from 49 percent in 2009 to 76 percent in 2017.
In 2013, 47 percent of black Americans and 61 percent of Hispanic Americans described themselves as satisfied with how black Americans are treated in American society, according to Gallup polling. By 2018, those numbers had dipped to 18 percent among black Americans and 39 percent among Hispanic Americans.
Support among black Americans for reparations increased from 55 percent in 2002 to 73 percent in last year, according to the 2019 Gallup survey.
Young, educated Democrats may drive changes
According to the 2019 Pew survey, 55 percent of white people over age 65 think too much attention is being paid to race and racial issues in America. So do 56 percent of white Americans who have a high school degree or less.
In contrast, a majority of white people with a bachelor’s degree or more either think America is discussing racial issues an appropriate amount or that the nation isn’t talking about them enough. A majority of white people between 18 and 49 also hold this view.
Research from Data for Progress suggests that white millennials are much more likely than older white people to agree that black people in America face structural racial discrimination.
You are probably thinking that white people with bachelor’s degrees and under age 50 are increasingly aligned with Democrats, so if many college-educated white people and white people under 50 are Democrats, could they have simply have adjusted their racial views to match the broader Democratic Party?
But there’s some evidence that people are increasingly choosing which party they align with based on racial issues. So it might also be the case that some white people under 50 and college-educated white people see a lot of racial discrimination in America, and that causes them to align with Democrats, while people who think racial issues get too much attention are aligning with the GOP.
This article has focused on white people, but we should emphasize that many of these protests are organized and spearheaded by black leaders, with many black people in attendance, as well as people of other races. None of this data is meant to downplay the role of that black leadership, or suggest that the protests are somehow better or more important because white people are attending. And the white presence at these protests is hardly unprecedented — there were plenty of white people involved in the civil rights activism of the 1960s.
All that said, the protests are a vivid illustration of a broader shift in American politics: The Democratic Party is increasingly a coalition of people of all races pushing for racial equality.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: The data behind police violence


fivethirtyeight--2020-06-03--Biden Doesn’t Really Have A Young Voters Problem

Some Democrats are worried about former Vice President Joe Biden ’ s ability to appeal to younger voters .
After all , the presumptive Democratic nominee struggled immensely to win young voters in the primary : From the Iowa caucuses through the March 17 primaries , Biden won just 22 percent of the vote among those younger than 45 years old , according to the exit polls , compared to 51 percent among those 45 and older .
Yet for all the concern , Biden isn ’ t actually doing that much worse among younger voters than Hillary Clinton did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data from about 90 national polls conducted since April 1 , Biden ’ s margins among different groups of younger voters is about the same — or just a tad worse — than Clinton ’ s margins were four years ago .
( Pollsters don ’ t use the same age brackets , so there is some overlap in the different age groups . )
For instance , Clinton won voters under the age of 45 by about 17 percentage points , according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study , a survey of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University and administered by YouGov , while Biden led by an average of 16 points among this group in polls conducted in the last two months .
In fact , in each of the age groups we looked at , Biden ’ s margin ranged from about 1 point better than Clinton ’ s to just 3 points worse .
In other words , Biden may not excite young voters , but this isn ’ t necessarily going to be an Achilles ’ heel for his campaign either , especially considering Biden may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters .
There was a fair amount of variation in how Biden did among younger voters in the polls we looked at , though .
For example , while Morning Consult and YouGov both found Biden leading among voters aged 18 to 29 by an average of about 20 points over the past two months , they differed quite a bit when it came to voters aged 30 to 44 .
Morning Consult gave Biden an average lead of 6 points compared to YouGov ’ s 12 points .
And although Data for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average lead of 23 points among those aged 18 to 34 , Firehouse Strategies/Øptimus only gave him an edge of 12 points across its tracking polls for that age group .
But it ’ s hard to unpack what some of these differences might mean for Biden , as ultimately it may have less to do with different pollsters picking up different trends and more with sampling methodologies , house effects and the larger margins of error often seen in smaller sample sizes like age groups .
Still , even though Biden isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these polls don ’ t hint at whether he will have a turnout problem in November , which is arguably Biden ’ s biggest concern when it comes to young voters .
Younger voters overwhelmingly lean Democratic , but they also turn out at much lower rates than older voters : Only 43 percent of eligible voters under the age of 30 voted in 2016 , compared with 71 percent of voters 60 and older , according to census data compiled by the United States Elections Project .
It ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Biden and dislike of Trump leading to low participation among younger voters .
For instance , a May Yahoo News/YouGov survey of registered voters found that 15 percent of respondents under 30 preferred a third-party candidate to Biden or Trump , which was the highest share of any age group ( the next-highest was 6 percent among 30- to 44-year-olds ) .
Then again , it ’ s possible that young voters ’ distaste for Trump could help Biden , as younger voters really don ’ t like the president .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in March that 66 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 disapproved of Trump ’ s job performance , and a May Fox News poll found 56 percent of voters under 45 disapproved .
In other words , if November is treated as a referendum on Trump ’ s performance , it could push more young voters into Biden ’ s column even if they aren ’ t enthused by his candidacy .
What ’ s more , Biden may be able to overcome his shortcomings with younger Americans if his numbers among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not just our analysis that finds Biden outperforming Clinton among older voters .
Survey data from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape project also suggests that Biden ’ s strength among older voters isn ’ t a short-term , coronavirus-induced flash in the pan — in their polling , Biden has led Trump among voters 45 and older since last fall .
These numbers could be pivotal , too , because older Americans will likely make up a large majority of voters — in 2012 and 2016 , voters 45 and older @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the electorate , according to Census Bureau data .
Of course , Biden will still want to gin up enthusiasm among young voters .
Tellingly , his campaign already took a page out of Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ s playbook by backing a plan to forgive college debt among many low- and middle-income borrowers .
But even if Biden can ’ t improve on Clinton ’ s 2016 performance among young voters , polling thus far suggests he ’ s not really doing that much worse than she did .
Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exaggerated one at best .

Some Democrats are worried about former Vice President Joe Biden’s ability to appeal to younger voters. After all, the presumptive Democratic nominee struggled immensely to win young voters in the primary: From the Iowa caucuses through the March 17 primaries, Biden won just 22 percent of the vote among those younger than 45 years old, according to the exit polls, compared to 51 percent among those 45 and older.
Yet for all the concern, Biden isn’t actually doing that much worse among younger voters than Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 election. Looking at data from about 90 national polls conducted since April 1, Biden’s margins among different groups of younger voters is about the same — or just a tad worse — than Clinton’s margins were four years ago. (Pollsters don’t use the same age brackets, so there is some overlap in the different age groups.)
Biden’s young voter support only slightly trails Clinton’s Comparison of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vote margin and the average margin in national head-to-head polls between Joe Biden and President Trump since April 1, by different age groups Age group Clinton 2016 margin Biden 2020 margin Difference 18 to 29 +22.9 +24.1 +1.2 18 to 34 +21.7 +19.0 -2.7 18 to 44 +16.7 +16.1 -0.6 30 to 44 +12.1 +10.9 -1.2 35 to 44 +8.8 +9.6 +0.8 35 to 49 +7.9 +5.9 -2.0 Polls were averaged by pollster to avoid overweighting one pollster. Source: COOPERATIVE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION STUDY, POLLS
For instance, Clinton won voters under the age of 45 by about 17 percentage points, according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a survey of more than 60,000 voters organized by Harvard University and administered by YouGov, while Biden led by an average of 16 points among this group in polls conducted in the last two months. In fact, in each of the age groups we looked at, Biden’s margin ranged from about 1 point better than Clinton’s to just 3 points worse.
In other words, Biden may not excite young voters, but this isn’t necessarily going to be an Achilles’ heel for his campaign either, especially considering Biden may be in a stronger position with older voters.
There was a fair amount of variation in how Biden did among younger voters in the polls we looked at, though. For example, while Morning Consult and YouGov both found Biden leading among voters aged 18 to 29 by an average of about 20 points over the past two months, they differed quite a bit when it came to voters aged 30 to 44. Morning Consult gave Biden an average lead of 6 points compared to YouGov’s 12 points. And although Data for Progress’s surveys gave Biden an average lead of 23 points among those aged 18 to 34, Firehouse Strategies/Øptimus only gave him an edge of 12 points across its tracking polls for that age group. But it’s hard to unpack what some of these differences might mean for Biden, as ultimately it may have less to do with different pollsters picking up different trends and more with sampling methodologies, house effects and the larger margins of error often seen in smaller sample sizes like age groups.
Still, even though Biden isn’t doing poorly with young voters, these polls don’t hint at whether he will have a turnout problem in November, which is arguably Biden’s biggest concern when it comes to young voters. Younger voters overwhelmingly lean Democratic, but they also turn out at much lower rates than older voters: Only 43 percent of eligible voters under the age of 30 voted in 2016, compared with 71 percent of voters 60 and older, according to census data compiled by the United States Elections Project. It’s not impossible to imagine a lack of enthusiasm for Biden and dislike of Trump leading to low participation among younger voters. For instance, a May Yahoo News/YouGov survey of registered voters found that 15 percent of respondents under 30 preferred a third-party candidate to Biden or Trump, which was the highest share of any age group (the next-highest was 6 percent among 30- to 44-year-olds).
Then again, it’s possible that young voters’ distaste for Trump could help Biden, as younger voters really don’t like the president. The Harvard Institute of Politics Youth Poll found in March that 66 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 disapproved of Trump’s job performance, and a May Fox News poll found 56 percent of voters under 45 disapproved. In other words, if November is treated as a referendum on Trump’s performance, it could push more young voters into Biden’s column even if they aren’t enthused by his candidacy.
What’s more, Biden may be able to overcome his shortcomings with younger Americans if his numbers among older voters hold true. It’s not just our analysis that finds Biden outperforming Clinton among older voters. Survey data from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape project also suggests that Biden’s strength among older voters isn’t a short-term, coronavirus-induced flash in the pan — in their polling, Biden has led Trump among voters 45 and older since last fall. These numbers could be pivotal, too, because older Americans will likely make up a large majority of voters — in 2012 and 2016, voters 45 and older constituted a little over 60 percent of the electorate, according to Census Bureau data.
Of course, Biden will still want to gin up enthusiasm among young voters. Tellingly, his campaign already took a page out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s playbook by backing a plan to forgive college debt among many low- and middle-income borrowers. But even if Biden can’t improve on Clinton’s 2016 performance among young voters, polling thus far suggests he’s not really doing that much worse than she did. Biden’s problem with younger voters might be an exaggerated one at best.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: The data behind police violence


fivethirtyeight--2020-06-02--Trump’s Use Of Tear Gas To Break Up A Protest Undermined Three Core Values Of American Democracy

The criticism that President Trump has disregarded many of our country ’ s norms and democratic values is not new .
We ’ ve written about it several times before — in particular , about how the violation of values is a bigger deal than the breaking of norms .
But law enforcement officials using tear gas on protesters outside the White House to clear a path for Trump to visit a church nearby — for what seemed to amount to a photo-op of him holding a Bible — was arguably one of most significant moments of his breaking with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was essentially a three-part violation .
In being generally unsupportive of the protests against the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers , Trump is in tension with a core democratic value — America taking additional steps to ensure people are treated equally , no matter their race .
Trump ’ s decision to break up the protest then subverted one of America ’ s core democratic values , the right to peacefully protest .
Finally , by involving the National Guard and senior military officials in the action against the protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the military and police not be used for political purposes .
We ’ re going to unpack what it means that Trump disregarded these democratic values in this article , but let ’ s first briefly explain what we mean when we say “ democratic values.
” Much of the commentary around Trump suggests that he is violating “ norms ” — or , put another way , Trump is not doing things the “ normal ” way like his predecessors ( think former Presidents George H.W .
Bush , George W. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in reality , what often concerns people about Trump and his allies is that they are attacking core democratic values , not norms .
To put this bluntly , basically every American president before Abraham Lincoln took actions to help perpetuate slavery in some way — being pro-slavery was the norm .
But slavery was against democratic values of freedom and equality .
So let ’ s look at Trump ’ s move on Monday in terms of core democratic values that he may have violated : The protesters contend that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and police departments across the country , have a history of treating black people unfairly compared with white people .
So Trump ’ s reluctance to embrace these protesters suggests he is not particularly interested in policies that seek to address past or current discrimation against black Americans .
That ’ s nothing new for Trump — as we have written before , he seems to practice a kind of white identity politics where he does not do a ton to reach out to black or Latino Americans .
Of course , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidents either — both Democratic and Republican commanders-in-chief have adopted policies that have made life harder for black Americans .
But it is surprising in the context of America in 2020 , when a clear majority of Americans think police are unfair to black people and think the killing of Floyd was unjust , that Trump is doing little to suggest he is aligned with that cause amid the protests .
The right to peacefully protest The right to assemble and protest peacefully is protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ support this democratic value — at least in the abstract .
After all , American history is full of protests , from the civil rights movement to the creation of the tea party , and these movements are usually celebrated looking back , even if they were unpopular at the time .
“ There is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest , and I ’ m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop , ” said Sen. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Trump from an elected official in his own party .
The fact that Trump was trying to end the protests at all was problematic .
But the way he and his team chose to do so — by having law enforcement officials fire tear gas at protesters — made the situation even worse .
It was one of the most aggressive ways possible to end the protests , and it potentially established a way to limit them in the future , if people are scared they will be injured or killed if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to emphasize that the Trump administration is not alone in using tear gas amid these protests of Floyd ’ s death .
Cities across the country , including many run by Democratic mayors , are using tear gas on protesters too , arguing that they are violating curfews or that some want to harm police officers .
But two things distinguish Trump ’ s action from those mayors ’ .
First , the people in D.C. were not in violation of the city ’ s 7 p.m. curfew — the tear gas was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went into effect , and it seems to have been used for no other purpose than to clear the protesters out of Trump ’ s walking path .
Second , the president of the U.S. allowing the use of tear gas on civilians protesting peacefully is simply a bigger deal than a mayor or governor doing it .
The fact that Trump has used tear gas on protesters could lead to its use by more officials , too .
This is another instance , though , where norms and democratic values have not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protects the right of people to freely assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances , government interference with this right is not uncommon .
But the escalation we saw from the White House on Monday is .
Police and the military not being aligned with one political side It ’ s not just that the president ’ s actions violated the right of people to protest , either .
How he did this — by using law enforcement officials — matters too .
Democracy scholars believe that the police and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one political party or leader , and instead must view themselves as defending the broader public , following laws and rules no matter which party is in charge .
Being apolitical has been a long-standing tradition of the U.S. military in particular .
But during Trump ’ s presidency , the idea that our police and military are separate from partisan politics has appeared increasingly strained .
For instance , the national Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement groups were strongly behind Trump during his 2016 campaign .
And the Minneapolis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy of preventing officers from attending Trump rallies in uniform .
The president has even gone as far as to refer to military officers as “ my generals.
” And on Monday , the nation ’ s highest-ranking military officer , Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley , was on site at the White House before the tear gas was fired at the protesters .
It ’ s a tricky balance , as individual police and military personnel have the right to support candidates and hold political views .
But as institutions , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t work for any one politician or any one political side .
However , by encouraging the police and military to take on the protesters across the country , Trump has crossed a crucial and dangerous line .
This could have significant ramifications as the act of policing has become a more partisan issue .
Pew Research Center polling conducted in 2016 found that nearly 70 percent of police officers thought that deaths of black Americans during encounters with police were isolated incidents .
But while there is not much recent polling of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that an overwhelming majority of Democrats thought these deaths were part of a broader pattern .
A president concerned about this dynamic and its implications might try to ease those tensions .
But Trump , in both his words and his actions on Monday , is doing the opposite .
To conclude , in a democracy that is running smoothly , most citizens may not think very much about our shared norms and democratic values , but America is not running smoothly right now .
That means we are forced to grapple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and why they matter .

The criticism that President Trump has disregarded many of our country’s norms and democratic values is not new. We’ve written about it several times before — in particular, about how the violation of values is a bigger deal than the breaking of norms. But law enforcement officials using tear gas on protesters outside the White House to clear a path for Trump to visit a church nearby — for what seemed to amount to a photo-op of him holding a Bible — was arguably one of most significant moments of his breaking with such values during his presidency.
It was essentially a three-part violation. In being generally unsupportive of the protests against the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, Trump is in tension with a core democratic value — America taking additional steps to ensure people are treated equally, no matter their race. Trump’s decision to break up the protest then subverted one of America’s core democratic values, the right to peacefully protest. Finally, by involving the National Guard and senior military officials in the action against the protesters, Trump also disregarded the democratic value that the military and police not be used for political purposes.
We’re going to unpack what it means that Trump disregarded these democratic values in this article, but let’s first briefly explain what we mean when we say “democratic values.” Much of the commentary around Trump suggests that he is violating “norms” — or, put another way, Trump is not doing things the “normal” way like his predecessors (think former Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama). But, in reality, what often concerns people about Trump and his allies is that they are attacking core democratic values, not norms. To put this bluntly, basically every American president before Abraham Lincoln took actions to help perpetuate slavery in some way — being pro-slavery was the norm. But slavery was against democratic values of freedom and equality.
So let’s look at Trump’s move on Monday in terms of core democratic values that he may have violated:
Expanding racial equality
The protesters contend that the police in Minneapolis who killed Floyd, and police departments across the country, have a history of treating black people unfairly compared with white people.
So Trump’s reluctance to embrace these protesters suggests he is not particularly interested in policies that seek to address past or current discrimation against black Americans.
That’s nothing new for Trump — as we have written before, he seems to practice a kind of white identity politics where he does not do a ton to reach out to black or Latino Americans. Of course, this behavior is not exactly new for American presidents either — both Democratic and Republican commanders-in-chief have adopted policies that have made life harder for black Americans. But it is surprising in the context of America in 2020, when a clear majority of Americans think police are unfair to black people and think the killing of Floyd was unjust, that Trump is doing little to suggest he is aligned with that cause amid the protests.
The right to peacefully protest
The right to assemble and protest peacefully is protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution. And normally, both Democrats and Republicans support this democratic value — at least in the abstract. After all, American history is full of protests, from the civil rights movement to the creation of the tea party, and these movements are usually celebrated looking back, even if they were unpopular at the time.
“There is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, in a rare rebuke of Trump from an elected official in his own party.
The fact that Trump was trying to end the protests at all was problematic. But the way he and his team chose to do so — by having law enforcement officials fire tear gas at protesters — made the situation even worse. It was one of the most aggressive ways possible to end the protests, and it potentially established a way to limit them in the future, if people are scared they will be injured or killed if they protest.
It’s important to emphasize that the Trump administration is not alone in using tear gas amid these protests of Floyd’s death. Cities across the country, including many run by Democratic mayors, are using tear gas on protesters too, arguing that they are violating curfews or that some want to harm police officers.
But two things distinguish Trump’s action from those mayors’. First, the people in D.C. were not in violation of the city’s 7 p.m. curfew — the tear gas was used about 20 minutes before the curfew went into effect, and it seems to have been used for no other purpose than to clear the protesters out of Trump’s walking path. Second, the president of the U.S. allowing the use of tear gas on civilians protesting peacefully is simply a bigger deal than a mayor or governor doing it. The fact that Trump has used tear gas on protesters could lead to its use by more officials, too.
This is another instance, though, where norms and democratic values have not always aligned. While the First Amendment protects the right of people to freely assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances, government interference with this right is not uncommon. But the escalation we saw from the White House on Monday is.
Police and the military not being aligned with one political side
It’s not just that the president’s actions violated the right of people to protest, either. How he did this — by using law enforcement officials — matters too. Democracy scholars believe that the police and military must avoid being tied to any one political party or leader, and instead must view themselves as defending the broader public, following laws and rules no matter which party is in charge. Being apolitical has been a long-standing tradition of the U.S. military in particular.
But during Trump’s presidency, the idea that our police and military are separate from partisan politics has appeared increasingly strained. For instance, the national Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement groups were strongly behind Trump during his 2016 campaign. And the Minneapolis police force recently faced pushback over its policy of preventing officers from attending Trump rallies in uniform. The president has even gone as far as to refer to military officers as “my generals.” And on Monday, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, was on site at the White House before the tear gas was fired at the protesters.
It’s a tricky balance, as individual police and military personnel have the right to support candidates and hold political views. But as institutions, it’s critical that they don’t work for any one politician or any one political side. However, by encouraging the police and military to take on the protesters across the country, Trump has crossed a crucial and dangerous line.
This could have significant ramifications as the act of policing has become a more partisan issue. Pew Research Center polling conducted in 2016 found that nearly 70 percent of police officers thought that deaths of black Americans during encounters with police were isolated incidents. But while there is not much recent polling of police officers, a 2019 YouGov survey found that an overwhelming majority of Democrats thought these deaths were part of a broader pattern.
A president concerned about this dynamic and its implications might try to ease those tensions. But Trump, in both his words and his actions on Monday, is doing the opposite.
To conclude, in a democracy that is running smoothly, most citizens may not think very much about our shared norms and democratic values, but America is not running smoothly right now. That means we are forced to grapple with what these norms and values mean — and why they matter.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: The data behind police violence