these protests have done a fantastic job, under the circumstances, of staying on message
anyone who's ever been to a mass demonstration knows how chaotic they are, even without violence. mass movements in general are unwieldy by their nature. it is indeed much easier to disrupt a message than it is to stay on message. the media - which even if it's neutral or favorable, will reduce everything to soundbites - will do that, as well as active disruption via disinformation, provocateur action, etc. that is all worse when the President is continuously spouting nonsense, threatening to shoot everyone, etc.
and yet for all that, the vast majority of the country seems to know why this is happening. there is very widespread sympathy with the causes if not all the actions - even there, it seems to me like people are pretty well aware that looting and protests shouldn't be conflated even if there's overlap (there's always overlap in any situation of social chaos). much of the credit for that should go to the people who've been doing BLM etc for the last few years - since Ferguson, basically. that Overton window has shifted dramatically.