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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.
One relevant quote:
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 flammable kind? Only one way to find out!
LOL. :-D Despite the topic of the article and OPs repeated warnings that we should all be worried about violence from the left, I'm not ready to start vandalizing my neighbors over their views, satisfying as I'm sure that would be.
Before I'd do that I'd start putting up signs of my own that really piss off the US right like "Everyone is welcome here" and "Hate has no home here."
People on the left tend not to think of themselves as “true American patriots.”
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?
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.
The mobility scooter wars have begun.
23% of Americans are free to fuck around and find out (they won't though).
Terrorism. Political violence is called terrorism.
Violent resistance to fascism is not terrorism. It is noble and moral.
Violent resistance to fascism is not terrorism. It is noble and moral.