Case in point, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took years of protesting, rioting, looting and burning, just as we're seeing today.
That's an excellent case in point because it demonstrated precisely what I am pointing out to you - that whereas peaceful protests can increase public support for a cause (especially if that protest is met with clear violent state repression), rioting and looting sharply decreases public support for a cause.
Using Democrat and Republicans as proxies during those years, for example:
Counties proximate to nonviolent protests saw presidential Democratic vote share increase 1.6–2.5%. Protester-initiated violence, by contrast, helped move news agendas, frames, elite discourse, and public concern toward “social control.”...violent protests likely caused a 1.5–7.9% shift among whites toward Republicans and tipped the election.
We learn that the violent protests of the latter 60s were responsible for giving you the Nixon Administration.
...Critically, in the case of the 1960s black freedom struggle, these results suggest that nothing in the contest between the more egalitarian and order-maintenance political coalitions was inevitable. These findings suggest that the “transformative egalitarian” coalition . . . was fragile but, in the absence of violent protests, would likely have won the presidential election of 1968. In this counterfactual scenario, the United States would have elected Hubert Humphrey, lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, rather than Richard Nixon. In the absence of white antipathy to black uprisings, the “law and order” coalition would not have carried the day and, possibly, not developed a durable campaigning and governing strategy for the next half century...
Choosing between oppression / abuse and not-oppression / abuse, the American people will choose not-oppression / abuse. But, if given the choice between violence / chaos and order... they will choose order.
Turning protests violent - rioting and looting - are among the quickest ways to discredit the movement in the eyes of the population they need to win over. If you appeal to America's sense of basic Justice, we can be won over, and you can win. If you
threaten America, we will deploy overwhelming force and crush you, and folks won't generally care over-much whether or not your rights are protected during said crushing.
...It is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots.... Let me say as I’ve always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I’m still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non*violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt.
Martin Luther King Jr was right, and you are wrong.
Barack Obama is right, and you are wrong.
And George Floyd's family are right, and you are wrong.
