text: LOL: Some Things Do Matter After All, by Mona Charen | Creators Syndicate
  What we've learned in the past two weeks is that we were wrong. Reality reasserts itself. Minds can change. Just weeks ago, Black Lives Matter was regarded as a fringe movement, a response to a real problem perhaps, but a vastly exaggerated one. Today, the slogan emblazons 16th Street in front of the White House. As Politico's Tim Alberta reports, in 2014, after Eric Garner was choked by police, only 33% of Americans believed that blacks were more likely to be mistreated by police than others. Only 26% of whites thought so. Today, 57% of Americans, including 49% of whites, believe police are more likely to use force against African Americans. This week, the 2012 Republican nominee for president marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter in Washington, D.C. The last two-term Republican president released a statement using the term "systemic racism," which curled the toes of some right-wing commentators but comports with the views of more than 80% of Americans. An eyebrow-raising 29% of Republicans say President Donald Trump has "mostly increased" racial tensions, along with 92% of Democrats and 73% of independents. The conservative Drudge Report website, once a redoubt of Trump enthusiasm, hawked "Justice for George Floyd" T-shirts.
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