Study: 44 Percent of Dems OK With Violence to Stop Trump

From Newsmax.com (Sept. 27):

A quarter of American adults — including 44% of self-identified Democrats — say they support the use of force to prevent President Donald Trump from being president, according to a new survey's findings described by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape.

Pape is also warning that the 2026 midterm elections could produce a level of political violence not seen in the U.S. in decades — and, under a worst-case scenario, could become "the most violent election in American history."

"We haven't seen this level of violence, political violence, since the 1960s," Pape said in a recent interview.

Pape is director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, or CPOST, which has been tracking Americans' attitudes toward political violence since 2021.

CPOST conducts nationally representative surveys with NORC (National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago.

Pape said his concern about November is heightened because several pressures are converging at once: deep partisan hostility, rapid demographic and social change, economic anxiety, and an electorate in which significant minorities tell pollsters that political force can be justified.

In his interview last week with podcaster Chris Williamson, Pape said his latest University of Chicago survey found that 25% of American adults supported using force to prevent Trump from being president, equivalent to about 65 million adults.

Among self-identified Democrats, Pape said the figure was 44%.

"This is a stunning number," he said. "This is not just another turn of the data."

Pape said broad support for political violence increases the likelihood of violence.

He said his team has tried to determine what respondents mean by "force" through focus groups and survey experiments.

Pape said that among respondents endorsing force against Trump, 55% associated it with lethal violence such as assassination, while others envisioned riot-style violence.

He said his surveys also found support for coercive force on the other side.

Pape said 16% of Americans supported Trump using the military to suppress Democrat protesters in his latest polling.

For Pape, however, Election Day itself is not necessarily the most dangerous moment. His greatest concern is the period beginning when votes are counted and extending through the seating of the winners in January.

"That's the real danger zone," he said.

The critical question, he said, is whether losing candidates and their supporters accept defeat or conclude the election was stolen.

Pape also points to additional economic stress.

Behind all of this is Pape's broader theory of "violent populism." He argues that social media amplifies political anger but does not create its underlying causes. [read more]

That percentage is way too high. ☹️ Should be closer to zero. Then again they and their collaborators in the artificial news say the President is Hitler. So, there is that.