It's easy, the week after an election where Republicans, frankly, didn't do so well, to feel a little put-upon. We shouldn't. This isn't the time to wring our hands, this is the time to spit on those hands and get to work. We lost a few elections in some blue states; disappointing, but not unexpected. The key thing now is to prevent the midterms from being a repeat of that. Take it, learn from it, keep moving. And a couple of recent polls give us both cause for hope and reason to be alert.
On Friday, Politico presented a couple of those surveys. My colleague Nick Arama commented on the first poll, showing the Democrats have no leadership at all.
That poll surveyed 2024 Kamala Harris voters and asked simply: "Who do you consider to be the leader of the Democratic Party?" "I don't know" came in first, and Kamala Harris, second. "Nobody" came in third.
But the second poll Politico describes was on the acceptability of political violence, and that one is much less amusing.
A majority of Americans, 55 percent, expect political violence to increase, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Public First. That figure underscores just how much the spate of attacks — from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year to the attempts on President Donald Trump’s life in 2024 — have rattled the nation.
It’s a view held by majorities of Americans all across lines like gender, age, party affiliation and level of education, though Democrats and older voters expressed particular concern.
I wish I could say this comes as some surprise. It doesn't.
The question asked was "When you think about the atmosphere around U.S. politics today, which of the following best reflects how you feel? I expect politically motivated violence in the U.S. to..."
The overall results were 29 percent decrease, 55 percent increase. (Count me in on the "increase" side.)
Posing the question to 2024 Trump v. Harris voters didn't open up a lot of daylight between the two. Among Trump voters, 34 percent said decrease, 50 percent, increase. Among Harris voters, 25 percent said decrease, 61 percent said increase.
But here's the worrisome part:
The POLITICO Poll, conducted after Kirk’s assassination, suggests Americans are rattled by the environment of heightened political violence — and that most still reject it: about two thirds, 64 percent, say political violence is never justified.
Still, a small but significant portion of the population, 24 percent, say that there are some instances where violence is justified.
“What’s happening is public support for political violence is growing in the mainstream, it’s not a fringe thing, and the more it grows, the more it seems acceptable to volatile people,” (University of Chicago political science professor Robert) Pape said.
That's unsettling. 24 percent of the American adult population may believe that political violence is justified; that is, millions of people. There are, as of 2023, the most recent year for which good data is available, more or less 180 million American citizens between the ages of 16 and 60, the ages at which one is most likely to engage in political violence. 24 percent of that number would be 43,200,000 people, who think political violence might be justified. If one percent - one - of them acts on it, that's 43,200 people willing to commit political violence.
These are people who are willing to riot, loot, burn, and yes, even kill, for political purposes. And if anyone thinks it can't happen here, we should remember that as recently as the summer of 2020, it did.
Trump administration officials are moving into secure military housing because of threats to themselves and their families. President Trump himself, during the 2024 campaign, was the subject of two assassination attempts.
And, then, of course, there was Charlie Kirk.
We live in interesting times. The next two or three election cycles may decide whether the United States survives and moves into a political and economic renaissance - or collapses into violence, rack and ruin. Sometimes it sure seems hard to see a middle ground.