Numbers matter. New polling suggests—phew!!—that not that many Americans want to kill each other.
It’s great news. Apparently, not quite as many people as shown in previous surveys are willing to use violence to enforce their political beliefs. Yay! A slightly lower percentage of the people around me are preparing for Civil War!! Wooo America!!
According to PLOSOne, a mere
31% of MAGA Republicans held the belief that having a strong leader is more important than maintaining a democracy…[and (19.2% endorse] armed citizens patrolling polling places
That’s so great—just one in five Trump supporters want voting access to be determined by gun-toting vigilantes. Two years ago the figure for supporting political violence was about one in three Americans overall.
Raw numbers matter, however. Support for political violence may have gone down a bit (surprise—there was big decline on the right after the prosecution of Jan. 6 rioters). But the raw number this represents is still millions of Americans. In the most heavily armed society on earth, that’s more than enough to start trouble. As the Times notes,
on any given day, there are thousands of people walking the streets who are openly armed and support committing political violence.
So, get ready. There will be armed vigilantes deciding who votes. There will be self-appointed election experts, like this Wisconsin mayor, trying to steal ballot boxes. He did it openly, for the TV cameras, while wearing a little costume.
Defend every vote, everywhere.
Survey on support for political violence: