Sorry, FHers, Ferguson wasn't the igniting spark of the revolution

Charles C. W. Cooke at NRO says, quite rightly, that the recent Missouri episode was just another garden-variety instance of barely-consequential race-hustling and fearmongering about law enforcement:

Ferguson has fizzled out, the general public having politely declined to draw any significant conclusions, the lack of available facts having stalled the media’s hype. Polling on the topic, meanwhile, does not tell a tale of a country that is unhappy with the status quo. Only 14 percent of Americans (22 percent of blacks and 9 percent of whites) consider police to be institutionally “racist”; just 16 percent believe that they have been “discriminated against” by lawmen on the grounds of their “race or ethnic background” (55 percent of blacks reporting no discrimination at all); and trust in the police remains reasonably high, with just one in four blacks expressing apprehension and one in nine whites admitting to the same. This may help explain why a majority does not consider it necessary for police departments to reflect the racial makeup of those they serve.

General attitudes toward the police seem to be similarly unaltered. Not only does the majority deem that the United States needs more — not fewer — cops, but almost three in five are happy with the state of police tactics. As for the Ferguson response per se, a New York Times/CBS survey revealed that only 32 percent supposed that police had “gone too far.” Research tells us that, in the abstract at least, Americans do not approve of police militarization. Nevertheless, they seem to have a funny way of showing it, having broadly approved of the behavior of both the regular Missouri cops and of the National Guard. If voters are gearing up to say “enough” to the MRAPs and automatic weapons that are flooding into their towns, they’re keeping it pretty quiet.

It's obvious to even the lo-fo cattle-masses of post-America what the deal was:

Most Americans, Rasmussen reports, suspect that the story is gaining special attention only because the victim is black. Nearly 60 percent consider the rioting unjustified. And, despite the hyperbole and prejudgment that we have seen from the press, two in three respondents confirmed that they simply did not have enough information to draw any lessons from the incident, let alone to pronounce upon the officer’s guilt.

All told, this should serve as no surprise. It is always tempting to regard the more dramatic of our transient political events as the ground zero of radical change. But, in truth, this incident never had about it the quality of the game-changer. If one is going to throw around terms such as “execution,” “lynching,” and “gunned down” — or to charge that a particular episode is indicative of a wider “war on young black men” — one had better hope that the facts quickly bear out one’s positions. As of yet, they have not. 

Eric Holder and Al Sharpton are no doubt rather frustrated guys along about now.