Instead of trying to relate to BLM activists by pointing out that Jeb! interrupts himself every time he uses his own logo, he quickly pointed to his record as a governor of Florida and walked offstage without offering any closing remarks.
Instead of trying to relate to BLM activists by pointing out that Jeb! interrupts himself every time he uses his own logo, he briefly pointed to his record of "empowering" people as a governor of Florida and walked offstage without offering any closing remarks. Rich Koele / Shutterstock.com

As Marissa Johnson of Black Lives Matter-Seattle suggested in a press release after interrupting Bernie's speech last Saturday, BLM activists have been confronting and interrupting presidential candidates as they blaze their own little campaign trails.

The most recent interruption occurred last night at a town hall meeting in Las Vegas. Jeb!, who has called BLM a "slogan," was preparing to give a speech. Then, the LA Times reports, two activists started a "Black Lives Matter" chant. They were quickly "escorted" off the premises and Jeb! went on with his speech.

As Jeb! was leaving the meeting, other activists started chanting "Black Lives Matter." The crowd responded to the activists by shouting "white lives matter" and "all lives matter," but this scene stuck out to me the most:

Two women — a protester and a Bush supporter — stood a few feet from the candidate with their middle fingers extended in each other's faces.

That seems to be the level of dialogue possible between People Who Are Thinking About Voting For Jeb! and BLM activists.

So far, Jeb!'s responded publicly to the interruption like a dad who just realized he left the camera with all the great Grand Canyon footage from yesterday at the Best Western all the way back in Reno, and there's no way he's going to tell Mrs. Bush or the kids about this development after he made them wait for so long in the car while he waited for the sun to sink just so beyond the ridge, despite the fact that Jeb! Jr. had to pee real bad the whole time:


Quite a day, indeed! There was that rally in Reno, and then the totally uneventful town hall where nothing out of the ordinary happened, and of course dinner at a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate a busy but ultimately unremarkable trip!

In any case, Jeb! met with BLM activists before the town hall meeting and discussed criminal justice issues. Back in his early days as governor of Florida, Jeb! was all about incarcerating more people, building more private prisons, and keeping people in them for longer, but he's since signed on to a conservative effort, Right on Crime, which seeks to do the opposite of all that because of the high cost to taxpayers.

Earlier in the week In New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton sat down and spoke with BLM activists who were planning on interrupting her speech but didn't get past security. Founder of the BLM chapter in Worcester, Massachusetts, Julius Jones tells the New Republic what he feels they got out of it:

"The place we ended up arriving with her, in part, was a personal discussion about what we think would work."

He added later:

"Whether or not a disruption would have been more productive, I can’t say—but I know that direct action wins. It has won against Bernie Sanders, and it will push the other candidates if it were to happen to them. But in this instance, what we walked away with was the best that we could walk away with. I have no regrets about it whatsoever. It happened the way it was supposed to happen and it moved the needle more towards justice, for sure."

Clinton has an incentive to tailor her message to BLM's demands: She wants to maintain her lead among black voters. But, judging by his reaction, Jeb! didn't seem pushed—he retreated to an old talking point about being a governor and then pretended like nothing happened. His audience didn't seem too pushed, either. Until they do, he'll have no reason to budge.

Judging from these recent interruptions, despite being part of a national BLM network with chapters and so forth, it seems as if BLM is acting in small, autonomous groups that are taking cues from other small, autonomous groups. Direct action works. Sitting down and talking works. It all works so long as "works" means pushing liberal politicians left and keeping the conversation about black lives current on mainstream media.