A PRRI survey out Wednesday shows that nearly a quarter of Americans support political violence heading into the 2024 presidential election, as an overwhelming majority believe democracy is at risk.
Did not read the entire article, but the first thing that stands out to me is the survey question itself:
Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.
This language is extremely in line with fascistic rhetoric. So the people agreeing to this are likely Trump supporters. Maybe this is a good thing that most people think democracy is in trouble but only 23% of them think fascism is the solution.
Researchers found that one-third of Republicans support violence as a means to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. And more specifically, Republicans who have favorable views of Trump were found to be nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump to support political violence.
That tracks 100% with my anecdotal feelings. There's one and only one guy on my block whose doorbell I'd be afraid to ring out of the blue. Guess what kind of signs are on his lawn?
The question that really needs to be asked is one capable of meaningfully distinguishing between those who support "resorting to" offensive violence in order to "save" the country from policy they don't like that was accomplished through legitimate means, and those who support legitimately resorting to defensive violence to save the country from the first group.
Good luck crafting such a question in such a way that the first group doesn't misrepresent themselves as belonging to the second, though.
The weird thing is that I'd bet a lot more people support some type of violence in order to reform all of our broken systems that clearly aren't being fixed by merely voting and protesting.
But the reasons for why our systems are broken are wildly different depending on which side of the political spectrum you fall on.
The Jan 6 insurrectionists were completely misguided, but they'd see a similar insurrection in support of reforming US government systems as an attack on the country itself, just as they are viewed by others.
How do we fix our problems when we can't even agree on what the problems actually are?
Steve Scalise was shot by someone who protested at Occupy Wall Street and volunteered for Bernie Sanders (source). I'm not blaming Bernie or Occupy but it isn't fair to say 100% of political violence is on the right. There's at least some on both sides.
Edit - feel free to downvote this opinion but all I ask is you make an argument. Why are you downvoting? Let's have a constructive conversation.
There are over 300 million people in the country. There's at least some of everything on each side of everything. That doesn't make it wrong to say political violence in the US is primarily a right-wing problem.
Fucking LOL. This cunt felt the need to both sides with an anomaly from 5 years ago.
Everyone knows the party of "we are all domestic terrorists" make up 22 of the 23% who support political violence in this poll.
EDIT: Fascists gonna fash
what we know is that this does fall along party lines in a pretty significant way. Researchers found that one-third of Republicans support violence as a means to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. And more specifically, Republicans who have favorable views of Trump were found to be nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump to support political violence. They also found that Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump were also three times more likely than those who do not believe the big lie to support political violence in an effort to save the country.
Lol basically, the logic of Israel; the constantly violent party, and when the other side does anything remotely violent, claim that you are now justified in genocide. Fascists certainly are similar.
This whole site is children mostly...they downvote any dissent in the hive mind.
But to posture a real rebuttal...yes, there's some violent outliers on the left, but the right is preaching violence day in and day out.
When Trump ate his first indictments, fox was openly talking about a revolution. I switched over for 20 minutes or so to see what they were saying, and it's pretty incredible they can openly promote a coup.
But yea, the left is violent as well, it's just not as well organized. For all the mass shootings, the left has burned down and looted entire cities.
It's a real bad time in the US regardless of which side you're on.
I live in a cop ghetto in the USA. Cops won't live in neighborhoods without a lot of other cops in them. And they refuse to purchase housing because then their address and name would be available on property reports. And since cops treat everyone else like trash that would make them and their families as vulnerable as the rest of us.
So they rent from rich people em masse in neighborhoods for mutual safety of the rich and the violent.
These people want the Iranian Revolution but US styled with ribs and beer and bashed queers. Their children I swear to god have cloven hooves.
A PRRI survey out Wednesday shows that nearly a quarter of Americans support political violence heading into the 2024 presidential election, as an overwhelming majority believe democracy is at risk.
The original article contains 30 words, the summary contains 30 words. Saved 0%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Well yeah, if I support violence against people who support violence, then I'm also a supporter of violence just by taking that position, and would then become a target based on my own statement. It's sort of like the Paradox of Tolerance I guess. You can't tolerate people who are intolerant, though in the process you yourself have to become intolerant of intolerance... but for good reasons (as opposed to people who are intolerant for bad reasons).