[hrothgar]

Every four years, the conservatives will get their panties all in a twist over something.

They'll fixate on some bit of idiocy and blow it up into a crisis of epic proportion.
This year, they seized on "Defund the Police"

There will always be something for them to seize on

The issue is not "Slogans that someone on the left uttered", rather its

1. The Republican noise machine
2. The idiocy of modern day "conservatives"

[y66]

Ross Douthat said:

At this time of year, normally a sleepy, unremarkable period, I often write a column summing up the things that I got wrong in the previous year’s worth of punditry. Given that everything is rather more harrowing than usual this year, the habit feels a little self-indulgent — except that one important and mostly falsified hypothesis that I once held, not just for 2020 but across the entire Trump era, is about to be put to one last test.

The hypothesis was that by nominating Donald Trump for the presidency and lashing itself so closely to his unique mixture of corruption, incompetence and malice, the Republican Party set itself up for a sweeping political repudiation — on the order of what it faced in 1964, after Watergate and in the last two elections of the George W. Bush era.

I was wrong about this in 2016, but after the pandemic arrived in 2020 and Trump responded so Trumpishly, I suspected that the reckoning had finally arrived — that the president was sinking himself and that his party would likely go down with him.

Trump did sink, but not as deeply as I anticipated — and meanwhile, the G.O.P. kept bobbing, its House caucus actually increasing, its hold on a few crucial Senate seats surprisingly maintained.

Where did I go wrong? Despite making it a frequent theme, I probably underestimated the public’s reluctance to hand a self-radicalizing liberalism full control of government, given its matchless power in other institutions. I also probably underestimated the stabilizing effect of the economic relief efforts on people’s finances, which made the pandemic year less devastating and the anti-incumbent mood less intense. And I suspect there was more lockdown fatigue, more wariness of the Democratic Party’s preferred public-health regime, than the coronavirus polling captured.

Add up all those factors, and you have a decent explanation for both the slightly higher-than-expected Trump vote and the voters who wanted to be rid of him but preferred divided government, in numbers that helped keep the Republican Party afloat.

Pundits are supposed to learn from the past, and learning from the Republican overperformance in November 2020 would lead one to expect that the G.O.P. will keep its two Georgia Senate seats in today’s runoffs. After all, Trump himself has been defeated (his unwillingness to admit as much notwithstanding), the Georgia suburbs boast plenty of the kind of mildly conservative voters who voted for Joe Biden but also might like to see his presidency held in check, and David Perdue, one of the two Republican senators on the ballot, ran ahead of the president nine weeks ago. A Republican Party that survived the Trump era without the kind of shellacking I kept expecting should surely be able to win the first Senate races of the Biden era.

Except that this isn’t the Biden era, is it? Not for two more weeks; for now, it’s still the Trump era, the Trump show, the last crazy act (until he runs in 2024, that is), with everything dialed up as far as he can take it: the wildest conspiracy theories, the most perfect phone calls to beleaguered state officials and the most depressing sort of voter-fraud pandering from the irresponsibility caucus among congressional Republicans. And all of it happening while the Covid curve bends upward, a new strain spreads and the vaccine rollout falls well short of Trump administration predictions — not that the president shows any evidence of caring.

This context makes prediction a fool’s errand. You can’t use historical case studies to model pandemic-era runoff elections in which the president is making war on the officials of his own party and some of his fiercest online supporters are urging a boycott of the vote.

But since prediction is often just an expression of desire, I’ll tell you what I want to happen. Even though the party richly deserved some sort of punishment, I didn’t want the G.O.P. to be destroyed by its affiliation with Trump, because I’m one of those Americans who don’t want to be ruled by liberalism in its current incarnation, let alone whatever form is slowly being born. But now that the party has survived four years of Trumpism without handing the Democrats a congressional supermajority, and now that Amy Coney Barrett is on the Supreme Court and Joe Manchin, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney will hold real power in the Senate, whatever happens in Georgia — well, now I do want Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to lose these races, mostly because I don’t want the Republican Party to be permanently ruled by Donald J. Trump.

Obviously, a runoff-day defeat won’t by itself prevent Trump from winning the party’s nomination four years hence or bestriding its internal culture in the meantime. (Indeed, for some of his supporters it would probably confirm their belief that the presidential election was stolen — because look, the Democrats did it twice!) But the sense that there is a real political cost to slavishly endorsing not just Trump but also his fantasy politics, his narrative of stolen victory, seems a necessary precondition for the separation that elected Republicans need to seek — working carefully, like a bomb-dismantling team — between their position and the soon-to-be-former president’s, if they don’t want him to just claim the leadership of their party by default.

That kind of Trump-forever future is what Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and others are making possible, with their ambitious pandering. Hawley and Cruz both want to be Trump’s heir apparent (as though he doesn’t already have several in his family), but the deeper they go into the Trumpian dreampolitik, the more they build up the voter-fraud mythos, the more likely it becomes that they’ll just be stuck serving him for four more years — or longer.

So there needs to be some counterpressure, some sense that dreampolitik has costs. And defeat for two Republicans who have cynically gone along with the president’s stolen-election narrative, to the point of attacking their own state’s Republican-run electoral system, feels like a plausible place for the diminishment of Trump to start.

I don’t think that diminishment is necessary to save the American republic from dictatorship, as many of Trump’s critics have long imagined, and with increasing intensity the longer his election challenge has gone on. Whatever potentially crisis-inducing precedents Republican senators are establishing this month, the forces and institutions — technological, judicial, military — that could actually make America into some kind of autocracy are not aligned with right-wing populism, and less so with every passing day.

But Trump’s diminishment is definitely necessary if the American right is ever going to be a force for something other than deeper decadence, deeper gridlock, fantasy politics and partisan battles that have nothing to do with the challenges the country really faces.

Or to distill the point: You don’t have to see Trump as a Caesar to recognize his behavior this month as Nero-esque, playing a QAnon-grade fiddle while the pandemic burns. We imported at least one of the new variants of the coronavirus from overseas in the past few weeks — like the pandemic itself, the kind of thing a populist-nationalist president is supposed to try to slam the door against — but instead of shutting down flights from Britain or South Africa, he’s been too busy pushing the stupidest election challenge in recorded history, while slipping ever-closer to blaming the lizard people for his defeat.

I don’t know how any of this ends. But somewhere between the wipeout of the Republican Party that I once expected and the 2024 Trump restoration that I fear, there’s a world where the party spends the next four years very gradually distancing and disentangling itself from its Mad Pretender and his claims.

And since that scenario becomes a little more likely if Georgia goes for the Democrats, I think that not only liberals, but also those Republicans who want a conservatism after Trump, should welcome that result.

https://www.nytimes....896ed87b2d9c72a

[Winstonm]

Quote

The problem with "Defund the police" is it's a slogan that is wilfully misinterpreted by political opponents (much the same as bits of the right insisting BLM means you don't value white lives). As it was explained to me by a proponent in the UK, it was to remove a lot of things the police currently do from them and give them back to more appropriate services (mental health etc).

Quote

Every four years, the conservatives will get their panties all in a twist over something.
They'll fixate on some bit of idiocy and blow it up into a crisis of epic proportion.
This year, they seized on "Defund the Police"
There will always be something for them to seize on

Cyberyeti and Hrothgar: Although both of you are correct, being right is not the same as being wise. The pragmatic understanding is that millions of Americans do not invest enough time or energy to delve beneath the headlines to understand nuances. A pragmatic and wise response to that truth is to try very hard not to provide the right side of American politics with an easy target.

The concept of helping police concentrate on their primary responsibilities by altering how police funding is distributed is a good idea - so why not call it Help Our Police Be Better! Now that is a slogan that is difficult with which to argue. So much of mass communication is determined by framing. Defund the Police came from a reasonable place - Black Lives Matter - and the desire to reign in the disproportionate killings of blacks by police is certainly a reasonable request. But proper framing of the complaint could have resulted in a much better outcome. Say, instead something like - Save the Barrel - Prosecute Bad Apple Cops.

A good friend of mine when I lived in Las Vegas told me his Sicilian grandmother told him, "Pete, there is what's right and there is what's real; you have to deal with what's real."

Reality is: Defund the Police is hard to understand on its surface and easy to misrepresent and attack. A little pragmatism can go a long way.

[kenberg]

I'll say a little more about "defund the police". I think it is important. There will be a short response and a long response.

Short response: The problem with "defund the police" is that when people are upset by it the explanation has often been "By defund the police' we did not mean that we should take away police funding". An ordinary person, not particularly political one way or the other, thinks that defunding the police does mean taking away the funding for the police.

Longer explanation: I was thinking of my early days in grad school. The summer before I started I worked for NASA, the next summer I worked for Minneapolis Honeywell. OK, a little bragging: NASA liked me enough that they ran a security check on me hoping that when I came back the next summer they could give me more substantial tasks. My wife became pregnant and it seemed best to stay in Minneapolis (I was studying at the University of Minnesota), hence the job at MH. MH also liked me. But somewhere along the way I decided to be a prof. Now suppose there were a lot of shouts by the population backed by some prominent politicos to "defund the professoriate". Probably some who said this meant one thing, others meant something else, but what would i do? I would forget about becoming a prof and go with NASA, or with Honeywell, or with some other industry. People are free to say that this is because I am really stupid and did not understand that "defund the professoriate" did not really mean that we should stop funding professors, maybe I shoult try to understand the subtle meanings of the slogan, but I would be on my way.

There are times when someone takes offense and my reaction is "How could he construe what was said in this way that was clearly not the speaker's intent?". With "defund the police", that is not my reaction.

Professors, perhaps especially math profs, have a reputation for not understanding the thinking of "normal" people. In this case I believe I am far more in touch with the natural reaction of a normal person that are those who think that the problem is all due to misrepresentation by opponents and stupidity of the population. If nothing else, I ask that those creating slogans give a little thought to how that slogan will play in the general population.

[Cyberyeti]

 Winstonm, on 2021-January-05, 09:16, said:

Cyberyeti and Hrothgar: Although both of you are correct, being right is not the same as being wise. The pragmatic understanding is that millions of Americans do not invest enough time or energy to delve beneath the headlines to understand nuances. A pragmatic and wise response to that truth is to try very hard not to provide the right side of American politics with an easy target.

The concept of helping police concentrate on their primary responsibilities by altering how police funding is distributed is a good idea - so why not call it Help Our Police Be Better! Now that is a slogan that is difficult with which to argue. So much of mass communication is determined by framing. Defund the Police came from a reasonable place - Black Lives Matter - and the desire to reign in the disproportionate killings of blacks by police is certainly a reasonable request. But proper framing of the complaint could have resulted in a much better outcome. Say, instead something like - Save the Barrel - Prosecute Bad Apple Cops.

A good friend of mine when I lived in Las Vegas told me his Sicilian grandmother told him, "Pete, there is what's right and there is what's real; you have to deal with what's real."

Reality is: Defund the Police is hard to understand on its surface and easy to misrepresent and attack. A little pragmatism can go a long way.[/size]

I very much agree with this, "Black lives matter too" would have done that job and disarmed a lot of the arguments. My reaction once "Defund the police" was explained was not to defund them, but to give them the same budget but take away some of the responsibilities so they can do what they should be doing better.

BLM has an issue in the UK that I don't know if it's the same in the US. The difference between the concept and the organization is huge. The UK branch was founded by some hardcore anti-semites, one of whom has a conviction for spray painting anti-semitic slogans on the wall of a former concentration camp (another is rumoured to have been involved in the mural that got Jeremy Corbyn into trouble, but I can't corroborate that). So while I support the concept, I cannot support the organization.

[Winstonm]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-January-05, 10:02, said:

I very much agree with this, "Black lives matter too" would have done that job and disarmed a lot of the arguments. My reaction once "Defund the police" was explained was not to defund them, but to give them the same budget but take away some of the responsibilities so they can do what they should be doing better.

BLM has an issue in the UK that I don't know if it's the same in the US. The difference between the concept and the organization is huge. The UK branch was founded by some hardcore anti-semites, one of whom has a conviction for spray painting anti-semitic slogans on the wall of a former concentration camp (another is rumoured to have been involved in the mural that got Jeremy Corbyn into trouble, but I can't corroborate that). So while I support the concept, I cannot support the organization.

I'm not so sure there is an organization - it seems to have sprung up here in the U.S. as a spontaneous grassroots movement. That it has been co-opted is not a surprise. In fact, creating a false branch in order to discredit the movement would be very much in the wheelhouse of right-wing dirty-trickster ratfukkers like Roger Stone here in the U.S. - I'm sure there are comparable people in Europe.

[pilowsky]

 kenberg, on 2021-January-05, 09:50, said:

I'll say a little more about "defund the police". I think it is important. There will be a short response and a long response.

Short response: The problem with "defund the police" is that when people are upset by it the explanation has often been "By defund the police' we did not mean that we should take away police funding". An ordinary person, not particularly political one way or the other, thinks that defunding the police does mean taking away the funding for the police.

Longer explanation: I was thinking of my early days in grad school. The summer before I started I worked for NASA, the next summer I worked for Minneapolis Honeywell. OK, a little bragging: NASA liked me enough that they ran a security check on me hoping that when I came back the next summer they could give me more substantial tasks. My wife became pregnant and it seemed best to stay in Minneapolis (I was studying at the University of Minnesota), hence the job at MH. MH also liked me. But somewhere along the way I decided to be a prof. Now suppose there were a lot of shouts by the population backed by some prominent politicos to "defund the professoriate". Probably some who said this meant one thing, others meant something else, but what would i do? I would forget about becoming a prof and go with NASA, or with Honeywell, or with some other industry. People are free to say that this is because I am really stupid and did not understand that "defund the professoriate" did not really mean that we should stop funding professors, maybe I shoult try to understand the subtle meanings of the slogan, but I would be on my way.

There are times when someone takes offense and my reaction is "How could he construe what was said in this way that was clearly not the speaker's intent?". With "defund the police", that is not my reaction.

Professors, perhaps especially math profs, have a reputation for not understanding the thinking of "normal" people. In this case I believe I am far more in touch with the natural reaction of a normal person that are those who think that the problem is all due to misrepresentation by opponents and stupidity of the population. If nothing else, I ask that those creating slogans give a little thought to how that slogan will play in the general population.

By normal, I imagine you are referencing the 'normal distribution' as opposed to all the people that think or act in a manner that an objective higher being (if such a thing existed) would believe to be right and proper.
I agree with your ideas completely. During the period that I worked in academia, I imagined that most 'normal people' thought and believed 'roughly' the same sort of things I did. Of course, this is a silly notion.

Here is an example of why my thinking in this regard was so hopelessly distorted.
I used to attend many large international conferences - like most of us have. Different ones had distinct 'cultures'. Even the little fields within them had easily discernible cultures. In the same way that people on that sceptred isle speak in many dialects and accents.

The SFN (society for neuroscience USA) annual meeting is the de facto world congress of neuroscience. Every year more than 20,000 scientists and exhibitors gathered from all over the world.
The meeting is always in October/November. In 2004 when John Kerry was running for President (remember him?) one exhibitor had a life-sized cardboard cutout of the two candidates so that you could have your photo taken with them. Being scientists, a running record of the choice of candidate was displayed.
More than 90% (I am not exaggerating) chose Kerry.

Obviously, polling is not an exact science, but if >90% of neuroscientists prefer Kerry over whatsisname. Is it really surprising that people in academia have a distorted world-view?

Coupled with an astonishing belief in the absolute correctness of our points of view, right down to whether infinitives can be boldly split, or whether 'or not' must be in the sentence with 'whether', it is a sure bet that most academics have no idea about the way 'regular dudes' view the world. Or why.

[Winstonm]

Here is a letter-to-the-editor of the Tulsa World I submitted January 2.

Quote

Dear Comrade Lankford and Comrade Inhofe:

It is with great pride and continued encouragement that I offer whatever further assistance you may require in our mutual quest to destroy the United States democratic republic and end liberal democracy worldwide. As we discussed in our Moscow meetings, authoritarian oligarchies are the wave of the future. Choice of governance by democratic means is passe'.

Continue to look ahead and work with me for that future. You will not be disappointed in your place as a helpful oligarch, and, I promise, you will not be forgotten after the republic you pretend to serve is buried in history. Continue in your helpful ways to re-package our anti-democracy propaganda - once the masses believe us, we will have won. A warning: do not remove the sheep disguise until the flock is asleep. Do not alert the sheep to the wolves among them.

Your place in Russian history is assured. Our finest writers are working to memorialize your feats of treachery. We hold you both in highest honor.

Vlad

Now, I understand that correlation is not causation but today, January 5, Senator Inhofe announced he was bound by his oath of office and he would not support Trump's soft coup attempt.

[Cyberyeti]

 Winstonm, on 2021-January-05, 13:28, said:

I'm not so sure there is an organization - it seems to have sprung up here in the U.S. as a spontaneous grassroots movement. That it has been co-opted is not a surprise. In fact, creating a false branch in order to discredit the movement would be very much in the wheelhouse of right-wing dirty-trickster ratfukkers like Roger Stone here in the U.S. - I'm sure there are comparable people in Europe.

There is an organization here and it's radical lefty pro Palestinian types rather than righties.

[Zelandakh]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-January-05, 14:14, said:

There is an organization here and it's radical lefty pro Palestinian types rather than righties.

There are multiple organisations there - Black Lives Matter UK and UKBLM, for example are not at all part of the same group. Saying that a specific organisation (of your choice) in any way represents the movement as a whole would be like me saying that Katie Hopkins is the face of British conservatism or Ken Livingstone is the true representative of the UK Labour movement. Try to look beyond the headlines of The Mail, Sun and Express before forming your opinions.

[akwoo]

"Defund the police" really did originate with folks who believe in replacing almost all if not all the police with social workers, nonviolent conflict resolvers, et c. Some of them believe it would really work. Some of them think the world would be better if people were allowed to just take stuff from wealthy folks. Some of them might not believe it works but they take "turn the other cheek" very seriously. (I know people who don't vote because they think democracy is just a way for 51% of folks to oppress the other 49%.) The folks who believe in replacing 50% the police have kept the slogan because they want to keep the support of those who want to replace 70% of the police, and those folks kept the slogan because they want to keep the support of those who want to replace 90% of the police.

In some places, the police as an institution really do have a troubling history and some people think it would really be better to just start over.

Me - I live in a small enough town that I think we do need generalist emergency response of the kind provided by police. But I think that the laws on murder/manslaughter ought to be changed so that you can't claim self-defense or defense-of-others without presenting some evidence indicating that someone would likely have been killed if you acted differently. Fear of getting killed shouldn't be enough. Some might say I would like to abolish the right to self-defense. I wouldn't put it that way but I wouldn't say that's an inaccurate characterization either.

Look - Democrats have a problem of having an ideologically very wide coalition. As someone just slightly too radical to register as a Democrat, I say that it's their problem and they have to figure out how to deal with it. The Republicans are discovering they have this problem too; they've recently discovered that someone who caters to their radicals too much can't get elected nationally either.

--------------

I want to say something about a second issue with "defund the police" - one that isn't obvious but surely is in the back of many minds, even minds who don't necessarily realize it. The police is almost the only remaining path into the middle class that doesn't involve a college education. The array of social services people want to replace the police with will almost all require higher education that's harder and more extensive than police academy. What we're saying once again here is that people who can't make it through college aren't capable enough to be useful to society. It's no wonder that non-college-educated voters are voting for nihilist politicians with no aims other than sticking it to the smart folks.

[Cyberyeti]

 Zelandakh, on 2021-January-05, 15:10, said:

There are multiple organisations there - Black Lives Matter UK and UKBLM, for example are not at all part of the same group. Saying that a specific organisation (of your choice) in any way represents the movement as a whole would be like me saying that Katie Hopkins is the face of British conservatism or Ken Livingstone is the true representative of the UK Labour movement. Try to look beyond the headlines of The Mail, Sun and Express before forming your opinions.

3 papers I would never ever read, I was only aware of one organization (the second only existed since Sept 2020 which was after I looked at this according to the first, although twitter (which I don't use) says they joined in 2016).

[Winstonm]

 akwoo, on 2021-January-05, 15:28, said:

"Defund the police" really did originate with folks who believe in replacing almost all if not all the police with social workers, nonviolent conflict resolvers, et c. Some of them believe it would really work. Some of them think the world would be better if people were allowed to just take stuff from wealthy folks. Some of them might not believe it works but they take "turn the other cheek" very seriously. (I know people who don't vote because they think democracy is just a way for 51% of folks to oppress the other 49%.) The folks who believe in replacing 50% the police have kept the slogan because they want to keep the support of those who want to replace 70% of the police, and those folks kept the slogan because they want to keep the support of those who want to replace 90% of the police.

In some places, the police as an institution really do have a troubling history and some people think it would really be better to just start over.

Me - I live in a small enough town that I think we do need generalist emergency response of the kind provided by police. But I think that the laws on murder/manslaughter ought to be changed so that you can't claim self-defense or defense-of-others without presenting some evidence indicating that someone would likely have been killed if you acted differently. Fear of getting killed shouldn't be enough. Some might say I would like to abolish the right to self-defense. I wouldn't put it that way but I wouldn't say that's an inaccurate characterization either.

Look - Democrats have a problem of having an ideologically very wide coalition. As someone just slightly too radical to register as a Democrat, I say that it's their problem and they have to figure out how to deal with it. The Republicans are discovering they have this problem too; they've recently discovered that someone who caters to their radicals too much can't get elected nationally either.

--------------

I want to say something about a second issue with "defund the police" - one that isn't obvious but surely is in the back of many minds, even minds who don't necessarily realize it. The police is almost the only remaining path into the middle class that doesn't involve a college education. The array of social services people want to replace the police with will almost all require higher education that's harder and more extensive than police academy. What we're saying once again here is that people who can't make it through college aren't capable enough to be useful to society. It's no wonder that non-college-educated voters are voting for nihilist politicians with no aims other than sticking it to the smart folks.

My understanding is that most metropolitan police departments now require a BA to become an officer.

[cherdano]

 kenberg, on 2021-January-04, 11:02, said:

I really ike the Julia Azari article,
As the Dem leaders attempt to get back House seats and figure how to prevail in 2024, I really hope that they can resolve the dispute over whether the "Defund the police" slogan cost them votes. Then they can move on to less obvious questions.

Did any Dem leaders use this slogan? Azari didn't say it was a fight within the party.

One problem that Democrats face is that there are a lot of left-wing activists that feel much more at home staging a fight against (or within) the Democratic party, then fighting to actually achieve more left-wing governance. Ken Berg tell them that "Defund the police" cost votes won't change their minds. I am sure they are convinced that if only the Democratic establishment hat fully embraced that slogan, it could have become a winning message that would have carried Biden to a landslide and the Democrats to a Senate majority.

[cherdano]

Me: for all its flaws, 244 years of Democracy in the US is something to be cherished, celebrated and, where necessary, improved upon.

Republican PA state senators: Nah, not if we can subvert it to refuse to seat a political opponent.

[pilowsky]

 Winstonm, on 2021-January-05, 16:22, said:

My understanding is that most metropolitan police departments now require a BA to become an officer.

Untrue https://www.uscp.gov...cer-application

[Winstonm]

 pilowsky, on 2021-January-05, 18:09, said:

Untrue https://www.uscp.gov...cer-application

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Quote

More than 1/3 of law enforcement agencies currently target college graduates. Many require a minimum of 60 hours. Others require a 2-year or 4-year degree.

[kenberg]

When Winston first mentioned this I looked up the requirements in St. Paul MN.

https://www.stpaul.g...er-information.

I wasn't sure what to make of this:

• If you have a college degree other than Law Enforcement, you must obtain a Law Enforcement Certificate from any eligible college/university in the State of Minnesota; a list may be found here

It says nothing about what happens if you are not a college grad.


But I looked over some other stuff and it appears that either a college degree is required or else, perhaps, some substantial college level courses mixed in with a training program geared to police needs.



This is about what I expected. Growing up in St. .Paul the guy across the street was a cop and if he had a college degree he was, afaik, the only guy on the block who did. But this was the 1940s/1950s., a completely different era. I think most cops today are either college educated or something close to it.


At any rate, I am not saying we should keep funding the police so that the non-college educated can move into the middle class, far from it. They do an important job so defunding is a dumb idea, at least if defunding means anything like what it sounds like it means. But yeah, some improvement and some re-thinking is in order. The defunding slogan was really ham-handed, and hopefully we can do better. Biden is a reasonable choice for making progress. Communities need the police, the police need the support of the community, there are some strong reasons why this is not going right, time to deal with it.

[Zelandakh]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-January-05, 15:50, said:

3 papers I would never ever read, I was only aware of one organization (the second only existed since Sept 2020 which was after I looked at this according to the first, although twitter (which I don't use) says they joined in 2016).

The second, UKBLM, is the one that the right-wing press accused of anti-semitism after a series of tweets against "Zionism" on June 28^th. I would be shocked if the majority of those supporting BLM in the UK would see any connection at all, let alone had any actively positive views towards anti-semitism.

[y66]

Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman at NYT said:

Lawyer on Trump Election Call Quits Firm After Uproar

A lawyer advising President Trump in recent weeks has resigned from her law firm after it was revealed that she participated in the call where Mr. Trump pressured Georgia officials to help him reverse the state’s election results, the firm said in a statement on Tuesday.

The lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, has been advising Mr. Trump despite a policy at her firm, Foley & Lardner, that none of its lawyers should represent clients involved in relitigating the presidential election.

“Cleta Mitchell has informed firm management of her decision to resign from Foley & Lardner effective immediately,” the firm said in its statement. “Ms. Mitchell concluded that her departure was in the firm’s best interests, as well as in her own personal best interests. We thank her for her contributions to the firm and wish her well.”

I wish the trolls who post here well too.