Democrats vs Republicans: Who Is Actually More Violent? - Robert Pape #1154

Chris William and Thalive, we touched this in debate, but it needs the full run. What’s the biggest threat to America?

It isn’t Iran, another foreign government, or a fringe militia. It is tens of millions of Americans accepting political violence. We have always had violence, but this is a different paradigm: mainstream anger becoming approval for force. There are precedents in the twenties and sixties, yet for most living Americans this is unusually dangerous and will shape the election.

But America had the Civil War and Vietnam-era unrest. How unprecedented can this be?

The Civil War was a very long time ago, and the sixties are six decades behind us. Those eras were anomalies, not our normal condition. In five years, we have had attacks or attempts involving Trump, Pelosi, Kavanaugh, Shapiro, and Charlie Kirk, plus violent episodes around the George Floyd protests and January Sixth.

What separates violent populism from ordinary populism?

Normal populism can be peaceful: people feel shut out, protest, remake parties, and bring in new voices. Violent populism is when mainstream frustration becomes acceptance of force for political ends.

What do your numbers say?

Our University of Chicago project has run national surveys every few months for five years. In the latest data, twenty-five percent of adults supported force to stop Trump becoming president, roughly sixty-five million people. Sixteen percent backed Trump using the military against Democratic demonstrators, roughly forty million. That suggests an escalation trap around the midterms, especially during counting and seating winners.

Official assessments often frame the greatest domestic threat as coming from the right. What about right-wing violence initiating things?

Those studies can be right depending on their window and what they count. Start around nineteen ninety and focus on lone actors, and the right accounts for more. Start around twenty fifteen, and it looks far more even. Crowds are often omitted, so neither January Sixth nor the George Floyd unrest is fully captured. Around Trump’s first term, pro-Trump and anti-Trump anger began feeding off each other, though the causes are bigger than one personality.

Reactionary and then re-reactionary.

Exactly. Operational symmetry matters more than pretending the sides are morally identical. Broad approval changes the scale: it gives unstable people, often carrying personal pain, a sense that a community will applaud them. Social media is gasoline, not the original fire.

A hundred million sympathizers does not mean a hundred million assassins. The crowd question matters.

Most George Floyd demonstrations were peaceful. But our daily tracking found daytime marches often ended peacefully, then smaller groups remained after dark and violence followed. January Sixth had a parallel dynamic: a larger rally, a smaller group around the Capitol, and about sixteen hundred people who forcibly entered. Once an initial breach happens, a crowd can spread like wildfire.

What do we get wrong about people who support political violence?

The old image is an unemployed young rural militia man. Our data shatters that. The newer profile is often educated, comfortable, employed, with a home and retirement savings. In January Sixth cases we examined, many were business owners or professionals; only about ten percent belonged to militias. They fear their group is about to lose everything.

Both camps feel the other side could take their future away, while nonstop media selects the hottest rhetoric. Fair?

Fair, but add too little pushback. Two thirds to seventy percent consistently reject political violence, yet they lack leaders and vehicles that make that majority audible. Casual applause, jokes, excuses, and silence around your own side’s violence provide social permission. A focal event can turn accumulated combustible material into a fire.

Is this American only, or wider?

It is appearing in Germany, Canada, Britain, and France, though with less traction. In America, two principal drivers are the shift from a white-majority toward a white-minority democracy and a long transfer of wealth upward. Immigration, political power, and falling behind one’s parents can all feel existential around elections.

How much is this Trump, and how much could cool after twenty twenty-eight?

Roughly half is underlying social change, a quarter Trump, and a quarter social media and other factors. Removing a personality does not extinguish the conditions beneath the anger. Russia, China, and Iran can amplify divisions, but cannot manufacture them from nothing. We are doing most of this to ourselves.

Bob, I appreciate you. Congratulations on the book. Where can people find you?

Come to my new YouTube channel, Pape on the Politics of Force, and my Substacks, especially The Escalation Trap. I hope people pick up the book; there is much more in it than we could fit here. Chris, I really appreciate the time.

Until next time, goodbye my beauties. See ya.