And in any case, public sympathy can be volatile and unreliable, setting up backlashes.
But Ms. Blumm, a former contributor to The Local, a Fort Greene blog that was started by The New York Times, and Mr. De Zayas didn't anticipate what happened next — the bike corral set off backlash among many longtime residents and merchants in Crown Heights, who say that they were not consulted and that their parking needs were disregarded.
The article set off backlash in Japan, where a Change.org petition demanding the publication apologize and delete the story has already gained more than 26,000 signatures.
And some advocates of gay rights worry that even if the court did rule in their favor, it would risk setting off a backlash.
A bill that would have banned concealed weapons on college campuses failed, after a rape victim testified against it and was questioned aggressively — and, many said, insensitively — by Democratic lawmakers, setting off a backlash.
The display of support for gay rights prompted a backlash, setting off demonstrations in Karachi and Lahore, and protesters clashing with the police outside the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad.
So too has the response of the rebel leaders, who have provoked a minor backlash by setting up their own rather crude whipping operation to stiffen the resolve of waverers.
The Swede was coming off the enormous success of the Backstreet Boys album "Millennium" (1999), but a boy-band backlash was setting in, and his treacly synth-only sound was falling out of favor at Top Forty stations; he needed a new beat.
On June 2, a judge sentenced him to six months in jail, setting off a national backlash over what many deemed a lenient punishment.
With the assault on the camps setting off a violent backlash across various locations in Egypt and despite the growing tally of dead, Muslim Brotherhood leaders and supporters of Morsi have continued to urge the people and their followers to take to the streets.
