Academics blame Trump, not months of violent riots.

Despite relentless positive promotion by the media and political elites, support for Black Lives Matter in America has dropped to a two year low.

An essay written by academics Jennifer Chudy and Hakeem Jefferson published by the New York Times analyzes how support for BLM soared to +20% in mid-2020 but rapidly dropped to only +5% – which is where it was in mid-2019.

The authors note that the figures serve to contradict “the idea that the country underwent a racial reckoning.”

Byron York @ByronYork

From NYT: 'Support for Black Lives Matter Surged Last Year. Did It Last?' The answer is no. 'The data...contradicts the idea that the country underwent a racial reckoning.' https://nytimes.com/2021/05/22/opi

The academics note that despite a high level of outrage at what happened to George Floyd amongst whites and Republicans, such groups subsequently “actually become less supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were before the death of George Floyd.”

Gee, I wonder why that happened?

The collapse in support began at around the time when violent BLM riots spread to 140 cities around the U.S. – despite the media erroneously reporting the disorder as “mostly peaceful protests.”

As Joel B. Pollak notes, while blaming Donald Trump’s the academics completely omit the real reason for the massive decline in support.

“They do not seem to consider the effect of violence, rioting, murder, and looting — except as reflected in Trump’s rhetoric — in alienating potential support,” writes Pollak.

As we highlighted last week, BLM suffered another political defeat after it was announced that a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford’s Oriel College won’t be removed.