Uncertain legacy of 2020 protests of racism, police brutality

It is five years since the death in police custody of a Black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, sparked protests that not only rocked America but spread to several countries in Europe. White police officer Derek Chauvin, who infamously knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine and half minutes, was later convicted of murder; most Americans agree with this outcome, despite attempts on the right to portray Chauvin as an innocent scapegoat and Floyd’s death as drug-induced.

The long-term legacy of that summer’s protests against racism and police brutality is far more uncertain. 

The racial dynamics of police violence are complicated, and there are known cases of asphyxiation by improper police restraint involving white victims and/or Black officers. But race aside, lack of accountability for cops who cause death or injury through reckless or even malicious use of force is all too often a reality. It is an area where reform is badly needed, and the push for such reform in the wake of Floyd’s death was salutary.

Unfortunately, the protest movement’s effectiveness was hampered by a lack of clear goals and the descent by some into rage and radicalism. Calls for police reform were often drowned out by blanket cop-bashing and calls to "defund the police," surely one of the most ill-advised slogans in American history. Meanwhile, polls have consistently shown that most poor people and minorities want more but fairer policing.

While the vast majority of the protests across America remained peaceful, riots, arson and looting in some major cities caused massive damage to neighborhoods and livelihoods; at least 25 people lost their lives.

Attacks on monuments, not just to Confederate leaders but to American heroes like U.S. president and Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant, further contributed to perceptions of the protests as extremist and anti-American. So did alarming cases in which people lost jobs, contracts, or businesses for criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement or even being insufficiently supportive. Not surprisingly, public sympathy for the movement quickly dropped.

While the protests did not, as some feared, damage Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy in 2020 — partly because Biden effectively condemned the rioting and looting — they probably played a role in the rightward shift that brought Donald Trump back to the White House in 2024. Today, we have a president who openly scorns racial sensitivity and just as openly sympathizes with police brutality, sometimes gleefully encouraging cops to manhandle detainees.

Trump’s Justice Department has dropped investigations of police abuses in several cities including Minneapolis, and the administration has deleted a nationwide database of misconduct by federal officers — even though Trump himself had supported national tracking of such misconduct during his first term. Trump is also adamantly opposed to reform that would make it easier to hold bad cops accountable.

Perhaps most shocking, the president is reportedly considering a pardon for Chauvin. The view of Chauvin as an innocent scapegoat is widespread on the pro-Trump right today; so is a grotesque vilification of Floyd that gloats over his death and drastically exaggerates his criminal record.

Five years ago, left-wing extremism posed a real threat to the American body politic. Today, an ugly extremism — on policing, race, and many other issues — threatens it from the right, and there is no sign of new leadership that could break this cycle.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.