Worried About Violence, Threats as Election Nears? Just Say No.
violence to achieve domestic political ends under basically any circumstance,” citing poll numbers in the high 80 percent range. At the same time, “a number of recent polls suggest growing anxiety over political violence.”
But Mason, who has been collecting data on electoral violence since 2017, shared some worrisome trends: “We saw a spike in approval of violent threats around both of Trump’s impeachments, particularly among Republicans. When partisans feel that their groups are being threatened, they become more approving of violence.”
Throughout Trump’s administration such threats increased, she said. “During Biden’s admin, we saw them calming down.”
Although one recent poll, found that 10 percent of participants said “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” and seven percent supported the use of force “to restore Trump to the presidency.”
Most threats, the panelists agreed, are simply designed to intimidate.
“In general, there are lots of people who threaten and never enact political violence, and there are some people who enact political violence and never threaten,” said Merriman.
This makes sense, he explained: “If you were serious, why would you tip people off with threats?”
He went on to cite CNN research done on threats that were serious enough that their perpetrators were subject to prosecution. That research revealed that less than 50 percent of those who made this most severe level of threat had plans to commit violence, which means that most threats are never going to be acted upon.
Still, he said, “You don’t need that many acts of violence to make those threats credible.”
“A lot of it is intimidation and trying to disarm the other side,” agreed Birch. “Turnout tends to be lower [for elections] when people fear there might be violence.”
That, she explained, may be the point. “Preventing people from exercising their democratic rights can be an important objective of electoral violence. In that context, we do find women and people of other racial groups other than the dominant group are targeted because they may be seen as particularly vulnerable.”
Countering this atmosphere of violence is challenging. However, the panel did have suggestions.
“Most of our data shows it is very easy for leaders to reduce approval of violence,” said Mason. “All they have to do is say, ‘Don’t do that.’ We have the power to change America’s attitudes about violence as long as our leaders are willing to do the responsible thing and provide leadership that keeps our democracy functioning in a peaceful way.”
Merriman suggested a ground-up approach. “We have to begin to tell the story of incitement and to call them out,” he said.
People must stand together in the face of intimidation and attempts to invoke fear, he said. “Those who oppose you might turn up the heat a bit before they realize that’s not going to be a viable strategy.” But they will back off.
“The goal is deterrence,” Merriman continued. “If we can change the psychology from one where those who are making or inciting violence think, ‘This always wins’ to ‘This is more likely to lose,’ we’re going to see a major change in threat trajectory and people feeling empowered.
“The key is solidarity.”
Clea Simon is Harvard Gazette correspondent. This article is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University’s official newspaper.
