[Serious] Violence, what violence?

[Spongebob]

Interesting poll results released indicating a majority of Americans fear our Democracy is in trouble of collapse.  But the results are mostly driven by Republicans who still deny the 2020 presidential election was legitimate.  Most astonishingly, Republicans were more likely to accept violence as a legitimate response.

I would say the way this question is worded is of vast importance.  While I don't have the poll questions, this line does make one wonder:

Republicans were slightly more likely than Democrats to agree that "it is OK to engage in violence to protect American democracy"; 32% of Trump voters agreed, compared with 22% of Biden voters.

If the question was stated as would you support violence to prevent American democracy from being destroyed, I would agree.  But protect it from what?  That's at least as important.  The insurrection of Jan 6 WAS the threat, not the protection.  That is objective fact.

Story here:  https://www.npr.org/2022/01/03/106976416...poll-jan-6

[vulcanlogician]

I think conservatives are more apt to think that violence solves problems generally.

I'm not being cheeky. There was a psychological study done that hinted at this conclusion. Years ago... so I'm not 100% on it. And the study didn't say conservatives were more violence prone or anything... just that they were more apt to see violence as a means to solve problems.

But it does fit the anecdotal model. Remember the criticism of Obama's "apology tour?" Like, Obama admitted to a few of America's mistakes and was berated by the right for not pounding his chest and spitting threats at Iran.

[Rev. Rye]

Makes sense, if I'm honest. Looking over conservative policies (at least from what I remember), their solutions for the problems society faces tend to fit into three categories. The first two are: commit more violence (terrorism, oil, police brutality), increasing punishment (abortion, drugs, crime in general). And the last category seems to be to ask "Why the fuck is this supposed to be a problem?" (COVID, mass shootings, income inequality, systemic racism). Fixing underlying social problems that cause these issues (beyond pleading for people to go back to their bullshit idea of the Good Old Days) seems to be a foreign concept to them. And exercising compassion towards people who aren't obscenely rich? What kind of fuckery is that?

When their solutions to everything boil down to either not giving a shit about the issue at hand or hurting/punishing "offenders" more, it'd be more surprising if they weren't more inclined to think violence is the answer.