Five years prior, when George Floyd passed away under the thigh of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, there was a sharp and extensive outcry. Republicans and Democrats, police chiefs and civil rights activists, internet outlets, and corporate executives both agreed that it was horrifying. ” It’s police brutality, obviously,” said conservative commentator Ben Shapiro at the time. That discussion is still in ruins today. A growing number of right-wing MAGA influencers and pundits are constantly calling for Chauvin’s pardon as well. What started out as a nonpartisan moment of reckoning has evolved into a cautionary tale for liberals about “woke” excess, cultural elections, and media displacement. Below are three approaches the MAGA movement has flipped the tale as the second anniversary of Floyd’s death draws near: turning a police brutality sign into an expression of right-wing dispute.
1. From” Democratic Victim” to” Police Brutality”
Yet steadfast conservatives in 2020 criticized what they saw on that infamous picture. However, many on the right now contend that Derek Chauvin is the actual victim, who has been raped by an overzealous fairness program and a media-fueled racial stress. Ben Shapiro has taken the lead in this regard, dedicating numerous podcast shows to what he refers to as” The Case for Derek Chauvin.” He then asserts that Floyd did not pass away from asphyxiation but rather from a combination of drugs, heart disease, and perhaps even a rare cancer. He has practically 80 000 names since starting an online petition for a pardon. He is joined by Trump aficionados like Charlie Kirk, Christopher Rufo, and Jack Posobiec. In front of a cheering group, Posobiec declared,” America cannot recover until Chauvin is free, and it is always a rest.” Trump has not yet said whether or not he will be granted a pardon, but his plan has been portrayed as a check of his devotion to his “wokeness” strategy.
2. BLM Described as the Real Threat
What many people remember as a multiracial demonstration against officers abuse is now being recast by the right as the start of cultural degradation, when the nation “lost its mind” during the protests of 2020 as evidence of national frenzy. They are more important because they attribute the Floyd protests to everything, from diversification limits in corporations to “woke coercion” in schools. BLM is not a motion for justice in this reactionary frame; rather, it is the catalyst that sparked a left-wing social revolution. The Greatest Lie Ever Sold and The Fall of Minneapolis are two films that critics have produced,” The Greatest Lie Always Sold” and” The Fall of Minneapolis,” to support the idea that Floyd’s death was misrepresented and that the actual result was a risky move in American beliefs. This tale was shared by Kanye West, who was once a proponent of criminal justice reform, when he claimed Floyd died from a substance abuse in 2022.
3. Turning a Crime into Money
The George Floyd account has been integrated into the wider MAGA playbook of reframing events through repetition, fear, and careful “evidence” in the days of Floyd’s demise, which included the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021, which Trump after called a “beautiful time.” Some claimed Floyd fabricated his death and was still alive. Some people claimed that George Soros had funded the protests in secret. There were even more grave allegations, including that the trial was a” sham,” that the jury was under pressure, and that the media ignored important details, such as the fact that one of the arresting officers was Black. Although the jury arrived to the conclusion that Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck was the key factor in the trial, medical experts at Chauvin’s case did dispute the extent to which his drug use or medical condition contributed to his death. However, that nuance has been omitted from right-wing spaces, where body cam footage and autopsy reports are used to promote alternative narratives. Repetition and amplification equal truth for our brains, according to Esosa Osa of the disinformation watchdog Onyx Impact. How can bad actors manipulate the media, exactly?
A tactical move, a symbolic battle,
Even if Trump were to pardon Chauvin, who can only be freed from his 22.5-year state sentence, it would not free him. Chauvin can only be freed from federal charges. But that’s beyond the scope. The demand for a pardon is largely symbolic, serving as a political rallying cry for conservatives who believe the Floyd protests were the start of America’s “woke” collapse. BrianO’Hara, the police chief in Minneapolis, has strongly resisted. In his letter to the Minnesota Star Tribune, he accuses right-wingers of trying to oust reforms that they have already tried to repeal.” We all knew what we saw, and we all knew it was wrong,” he writes. Truth may matter less than which story is told more often, as with many cultural conflicts in America’s polarized media landscape. And in the right-wing echo chamber, the death of George Floyd is no longer a tragedy; it needs to be refuted.
