How Will the Election Affect Racial Justice Movement?

The racial justice movement – which exploded into the public consciousness after the police killing of George Floyd – has become a crucial issue in the 2020 presidential election with uncertainty about future policies ranging from police funding to mass incarceration and civil rights.

Rutgers University history professor Donna Murch takes on these questions in the latest installment of “What Happens Next: Election Edition” produced by Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

“If Trump is re-elected, we should expect a continued repression of protests in which those arrested face enormous criminal charges, along with the tools of mass incarceration and asset forfeiture, all fueled by the politics of fear,” said Murch, whose areas of expertise include mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and the history of Black power, civil rights and social movements.

“Under a Biden presidency, although he was central to the Clinton administration’s anti-crime policy and is against defunding police, Biden knows that Black voters are central to his base. I would expect concessions such as federal support for body cams and oversight of police policies,” she said.

She also noted that popular movements for social justice should be expected to continue if Biden wins the presidency.

“Although we think of mass mobilization as happening in response to repressive governments, it is under Democratic presidents that we often see mass social mobilization, as happened under Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, and with the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement under Barack Obama. If Biden is elected, I would expect a lot more activism, possibly more than under the Trump administration,” Murch said.

You can view the “What Happens Next” conversation with Murch on Rutgers University-New Brunswick’s Facebook page. It is part of a series of interviews with Rutgers faculty on how the election will affect matters of national interest.