“On the left, we are now seeing the culmination of a number of movements and events that happened over the last decade: Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Sanders’s 2016 campaign, Donald Trump’s election, Trump’s presidency, the emergence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ‘The Squad,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s and Sanders’s 2020 campaigns, and the protests after George Floyd’s death during a police arrest. These events and movements built on one another. For example, it is likely the protests over Floyd’s death were so large, in part, because many of the people attending them had become more passionate about fighting racism in America because of Trump’s presidency. … The result has been a big shift in public opinion on the left — many of the views I noted above were held by few people and even fewer major public figures like politicians as recently as five years ago.”

Perry Bacon Jr.

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