No!

Conservative firebrand, Kurt Schlichter, looks back at the last few weeks and deconstructs their overarching meaning. Sure, the peaceful protesters were legitimately angered by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, but so was 99.9 percent of the American public. It's also obvious that the protesters were co-opted by left-wing extremists who wanted the protests to become unlawful riots. Schlichter comments as only he can:

The rioting was really an information operation, and a failed one. There were two big problems for the furious rioters. One was that normal people saw no connection between protesting the treatment of George Floyd and looting big screens from the local Target, except that both disgusted them. The second issue was the inability to identify a specific enemy. Who exactly was the person supporting the killing of George Floyd? What was the name of the person who said, “Yeah, that was a good thing”? Across the spectrum, liberal to conservative, people were appalled at what they saw on the video ...

But a larger, more comprehensive information operation is still ongoing, one in which a bunch of pampered SJW [social justice warrior] stormtroopers, aided and abetted by the weak and frightened elder caste of liberals occupying the heights of the establishment, are attempting to define the tolerable range of ideas and expression within our culture. In a shocking turn that would surprise only stupid people, the tolerable range of ideas and expression they wish to establish corresponds exactly to the ideas and expressions they agree with. The Venn diagram of what they think and what they allow to be thought is a single circle.

The rest of us are expected to shut up, and thereby concede and recognize their mastery over us.

We could do that, sure. 

Or we could tell them “no.”

I’ll go with “no.”

The problem here is that SJWs  are a lot like spoiled children. They really, really don't like to be told "No!" In fact, they don't want to hear any opposing views at all. Consider the uber-woke and progressive mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who tried, as gently as possible, to suggest to the throngs of protesters that defunding the police was a bad idea. The SJWs freaked and he was shouted down and forced the slink away in shame. The Left truly does eat its own.

Schlichter believes (correctly in my view) that scenes like the one that played out with Jacob Frey are all about two things: virtue signaling and bullying. The SJWs think they and they alone have a monopoly on what is virtuous and they will bully anyone, including one of their own, who deviates even a small amount, from their extreme positions.

Schlichter concludes:

It’s time to push back on these punks. They leverage our natural politeness and tendency to try to avoid conflict to take advantage and seize the high ground. Understand that tactic and refuse to play along. They leave you spinning your wheels by drawing you into trying to reason with them when reasoning is beside the point. You do not owe them a debate. Mock them instead, and stubbornly defy their commands.

A strategic information operation like the one designed to control the acceptable (Read “Leftist-friendly”) scope of thought and speech in society can only work with your complicity. It fails completely when you refuse to play along.

More than ever today, unleash the power of “No.”

It's long past time that responsible leaders of the Democratic party just say "No" to SJWs who call everyone who disagrees with their world view "racist;",who  want to effectively abolish police protection for citizens of all races, and who want to institute totalitarian practices that encourage censorship of words and ideas that they disagree with (think: the recent Tom Cotton incident at the New York Times). Democratic leadership (including their candidate for president) must stand up to the bullies in their midst, but will they? I think we all know the answer to that question  ... No.

UPDATE - 1:

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Another ominous demand of more than a few protesters has been to have police and others kneel or otherwise prostrate themselves before cheering (and/or jeering) mobs of the woke. Images of this are published by giddy trained hamsters in the media with commentary that not only applauds this travesty, but suggests that it's the only way that people can atone for their "privilege." Even more incredible than the demand itself, is the fact that many have actually acceded to it, bowing down, as it were, in  submission to woke thought.

Josh Lawson comments:

The kneeling phenomenon demanded by the radical left in the wake of George Floyd’s death—and embraced by those guilted into submission—creates a two-tiered social stratification of “kneelers” and “those who refuse to bend the knee” that’s wholly un-American.

Mobs resulting from years of citizens saturated in “critical race theory” and grievance studies have pressured far too many into believing they bear guilt for the past sins of others. Now they kneel in fealty to that false reality or be exiled from society.

Unfortunately, it’s also moved beyond just kneeling. A crowd in Webster, Massachusetts, recently forced Police Chief Michael Shaw to lie face-down on the ground for eight minutes. In Cary, North Carolina, a group of Caucasians washed the feet of black organizers to “ask for forgiveness.”

My mother came to this country in the aftermath of a war in which another group of vicious ideologues humiliated people they hated by forcing them to kneel in subjugation, and ultimately, did far, far worse than that. BTW, my mothers family didn't come along—they were all murdered by those who demanded submission.

It may take a little time for the image of police officers prostrate on the ground in front of cheering leftists to sink it, but it will make an impression. And that impression isn't what the Democrats and their hard-left base think it will be. 

As people outside the progressive echo chamber consider what kneeling down in front of a cheering crowd really means, their thoughts will go from incredulity to shock, and ultimately to outrage. But that outrage won't manifest as protests or marches or riots in the street—that just isn't the style for most of us. Rather, it will manifest when votes are cast in November.

UPDATE - 2:

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Polling over the past few days indicates that only a small percentage (~16% avg.) of all Americans (including Democrats) supports defunding the police. Democrat leaders were silent while their lunatic fringe, with the blessing of Washington DC's Democrat mayor,  painted "Defund the Police" in 24-foot high letters on a roadway leading to the White House. The Dems' trained hamsters in the media couldn't keep their cameras off the yellow letters—DEFUND THE POLICE" or the city workers (!!) who were painting them. 

Now, in a farcical shift in direction, the Dems are telling us that "defund" doesn't really mean defund and that "abolish" doesn't really mean abolish. Joe Biden tells us that he doesn't support "defund" but wait, if "defund" doesn't mean defund, why is Joe against "defund."

Scrambling quickly to avert an election disaster, the Dem's army of op-ed writers have been called in. Ann Althouse reports:

In this WaPo op-ed — "Defund the police? Here’s what that really means." — by Christy E. Lopez, who is a a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown Law School where she co-directs the Innovative Policing Program. She tells us not to be "afraid" because it's "not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds." 

Defunding and abolition probably mean something different from what you are thinking. For most proponents, “defunding the police” does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever. Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs.... 

Why not use words that people can understand and that convey the meaning you want to put in our head? If your idea is so reasonable, why not use words that are effective in making people who care about peace and harmony agree with you?

Answering Althouse's question, I suppose because the core ideas emanating from the extreme leftist SJWs are anything but "reasonable." They want to dominate, but as I mentioned, major push back is coming. The Dems are now desperately scrambling to avoid it.