Flashback: YAF Poll Found Students Connected BLM to Violence

A poll commissioned by Young America’s Foundation last fall found that college students connected the increasing trend of anti-police rhetoric to the Black Lives Matter movement months before the recent outbreak in violence against law enforcement officials. The poll, which was taken last September, found that 7-in-10 college students agreed with the statement “given recent acts of violence against police officers, the Black Lives Matter movement has cultivated an anti-police culture.”  Again, that poll was conducted last September. Even then, college students were able to recognize the harmful impact of BLM’s anti-police rhetoric and actions. So why has anti-police violence only gotten worse since last fall? The nearly 180 protests organized by Black Lives Matter this year alone have prompted more Americans to think differently about the true intentions of the movement. A poll conducted by The New York Times and ABC News shows that roughly 70-percent of Americans believe that the race relations in America are in a bad place. Just this month Pew released the results of a poll that found only 18% of Americans “strongly support” the Black Lives Matter movement. In total, fewer than half of all Americans (43 percent) expressed any support for the movement at all.  One would assume that President Obama would defend the voice of the majority and call out Black Lives Matter for contributing to violence against the police, right? Wrong. Even in the wake of the assassination of five police officers in Dallas, President Obama has supported and defended Black Lives Matter. At the memorial service for the slain officers, President Obama said that Americans “cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid.”  Come on.  When we released the results of that poll last September, we never would have imagined the recent violence in Dallas and Baton Rouge. It’s time for leaders like President Obama to specifically condemn Black Lives Matter’s rhetoric and help our country move on.