With glee, former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon confirmed on Wednesday that he helped former President Trump plan the Jan. 6 insurrection as part of an effort to “kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”
21 Million Americans Say Biden Is ‘Illegitimate’ And Trump Should Be Restored By Violence, Survey Finds
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
A recent Washington demonstration supporting those charged with crimes for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol fizzled, with no more than 200 demonstrators showing up. The organizers had promised 700 people would turn out – or more.
But the threat from far-right insurrectionists is not over.
For months, my colleagues and I at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats have been tracking insurrectionist sentiments in U.S. adults, most recently in surveys in June. We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, 21 million also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.”
Our survey found that many of these 21 million people with insurrectionist sentiments have the capacity for violent mobilization. At least 7 million of them already own a gun, and at least 3 million have served in the U.S. military and so have lethal skills. Of those 21 million, 6 million said they supported right-wing militias and extremist groups, and 1 million said they are themselves or personally know a member of such a group, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
Only a small percentage of people who hold extremist views ever actually commit acts of violence, but our findings reveal how many Americans hold views that could turn them toward insurrection.
A solid survey
In June 2021, our group commissioned a survey done by the independent, non-partisan researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago, seeking to discover how widespread insurrectionist sentiments are among U.S. adults.
The research methods meet the highest standards in the polling industry – a random sample of a representative sample. It’s the same process NORC uses to conduct polling for The Associated Press, the federal government and other major institutions.
First, NORC pulls together a panel of 40,000 people, called AmeriSpeak, who are representative of the entire U.S. population on dozens of characteristics, such as age, race, income, location of residence and religion. From that representative sample, NORC drew a random sample – in our case, 1,070 people.
Extreme beliefs
This polling found that 9% of American adults say they agree with the statement that “Use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.” And 25% of adults either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement that “The 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.”
Overall, 8% of the survey participants share both of those views.
The margin of error of this survey was plus or minus 4 percentage points. So when calculating the number of the 258 million adult Americans who hold these views, we looked at the range of between 4% and 12% – which gave us between 10 million and 31 million. The best single figure is the middle of that range, 21 million.
People who said force is justified to restore Trump were consistent in their insurrectionist sentiments: Of them, 90% also see Biden as illegitimate, and 68% also think force may be needed to preserve America’s traditional way of life.
The fringe moving into the mainstream
Combined with their military experience, gun ownership and connections to extremist groups and militias, this signals the existence of significant mainstream support in America for a violent insurrection.
This group of 21 million who agree both that force is justified to restore Trump and that Biden is an illegitimate president has two additional views that are also on the fringes of mainstream society:
- 63% agree with the statement that “African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites” – a belief sometimes called “the Great Replacement.”
- 54% agree that “A secret group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is ruling the US government,” which is the key belief in the QAnon movement.
Some people with insurrectionist sentiments hold one of these political views but not the other, suggesting there are multiple ways of thinking that lead a person toward the insurrectionist movement.
Broader support
This latest research reinforces our previous findings, that the Jan. 6 insurrection represents a far more mainstream movement than earlier instances of right-wing extremism across the country. Those events, mostly limited to white supremacist and militia groups, saw more than 100 individuals arrested from 2015 to 2020. But just 14% of those arrested for their actions on Jan. 6 are members of those groups. More than half are business owners or middle-aged white-collar professionals, and only 7% are unemployed.
There is no way to say for sure when – or even whether – these insurrectionists will take action. On Jan. 6, it took clear direction from Donald Trump and other political leaders to turn these dangerous sentiments into a violent reality. But the movement itself is larger and more complex than many people might like to think.
Robert A. Pape is a professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
FreedomWorks Staffer Faces Charges In Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
A staffer for the right-wing group FreedomWorks was arrested last week and charged for his alleged involvement in the Capitol attack, court documents unsealed Thursday show.
Continue reading “FreedomWorks Staffer Faces Charges In Jan. 6 Capitol Attack”
Another View from Arizona, Annals of Sinema
TPM Reader XX gives us another view on how Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is doing back in Arizona.
I am a longtime TPM subscriber who has known Krysten Sinema since she was running for Phoenix City Council as a Green party candidate. I think your analyses, and that of fellow reader GT, of her behavior are largely on target, though the revelation this morning that the big mail and digital push on her behalf is coming directly from Big Pharma suggests that this, again, is short-term positioning rather than some long-term plan.
Continue reading “Another View from Arizona, Annals of Sinema”
A Few Notes on the State of Play
Last night, with a lead-in from our friend Ed Kilgore, I sketched out what I think must happen for the Democrats to make good on the work of the 2018 and 2020 election cycles and avoid electoral and policy catastrophe. Let me share a few notes on what it appears is happening.
Abbott Is Using Cars For A Border Wall And It Looks Pretty Stupid
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Working At The Car Wall
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has engineered a “steel wall” of Texas Department of Public Safety vehicles at the Del Rio area of the southern border, which has seen a major influx of Haitian migrants in recent days.
- Abbott calls his barrier a “steel wall,” and it looks like……this:
“Our #bordercrisis goes beyond the RGV and South TX communities — the smuggling of drugs, people, and weapons reaches far and wide, and it affects all of us. I will continue to work tirelessly to secure our border and protect the people of Texas." — @GregAbbott_TX pic.twitter.com/2kMkse29l2
— Texas DPS (@TxDPS) September 18, 2021
- Abbott bragged about the “wall” on Fox News earlier this week, claiming that “we effectively regained control of the border.”
(Sorry, it’s just way too easy to picture migrants casually strolling between those cars in the middle while the agents inside struggle to open their doors.)
The House Jan. 6 Select Committee Is Still Digging
Seven executive agencies have handed over records the committee requested in its massive sweep for Trump-era documents to get to the bottom of the Capitol attack, according to Politico.
- The committee will reveal its subpoena targets this week, according to committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
- Thompson aims to wrap up the investigation this spring, he told Politico.
Proto-Trump Is Officially Gunning For His Old Job
The infamous former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) announced yesterday that he is running to get his seat back.
- Sen. Susan Collins (R) endorsed LePage, claiming that he was the “best candidate to grow our economy.”
- LePage had already filed his campaign back in July. I wrote about that with a short recap of some of his worst hits here.
- Calling LePage a proto-Trump isn’t a lazy comparison between two racist shit-stirrers; this is how the ex-governor reacted to an election result he didn’t like (and how you can certainly expect him to react if he loses):
I’ve signed off on the CD2 election result as it’s no longer in federal court. Ranked Choice Voting didn’t result in a true majority as promised-simply a plurality measured differently. It didn’t keep big money out of politics & didn’t result in a more civil election #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/0fEhD1dvAb
— Paul R. LePage (@Governor_LePage) December 28, 2018
Your Kids Are Learning About MLK Being Mean To Whites And That Is A Problem For Me
A local group of Tennessee moms is on a warpath to scrub out any educational material that it deems to be “critical race theory” via a detailed list of complaints to the state’s department of education.
- One of those materials includes “Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington”
- Go ahead and take a guess as to whether the leader’s kid actually goes to public school.
Bipartisan Talks Over Police Reform Collapse
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) six-month effort to reform laws on policing is dead.
- Biden blamed Republicans for the failure, saying that they “rejected enacting modest reforms, which even the previous president had supported, while refusing to take action on key issues that many in law enforcement were willing to address.”
Trump v. Bush: The Cheney Round
The 43rd president will be holding a campaign fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) next month, according to the Wall Street Journal and CNN.
- It’ll be Bush’s first campaign event of the 2022 midterms. The event will reportedly be held in Dallas on Oct. 18.
- Trump has endorsed one of Cheney’s primary challengers, Harriet Hageman, as part of his revenge mission against the Republicans who voted to impeach him for fomenting the Capitol insurrection.
- Bush has (sort of) criticized Trump without actually calling him out by name, while the latter fully mocked Bush’s “failed and uninspiring presidency” (even though Trump should probably thank Bush’s incompetence for giving rise to his own future presidency).
How To Do A Science
Dennis Prager, a conservative commentator behind the “Prager University” videos, offered this solution to climate change while ranting about women who choose not to have kids:
Dennis Prager downplays effects of climate change: "Did you know that there is a solution to warm climate? It's called air conditioning. It's very effective" pic.twitter.com/vGNxbVN7Sk
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) September 22, 2021
The Smoothest Of Brains
Lt. Col. Paul Douglas Hague, an Army officer who says he’s quitting over the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, admits he’s gotten all the other vaccines the military requires, but he insists the COVID-19 shot is BAD because freedom and eagles.
- Hague told Fox News host Sean Hannity that his stunt is “really not about whether I’ll get the shot,” it’s about “the freedom of the American people.” It’s about “The right to decide what’s gonna be injected into your body and what’s not,” said Hague.
Army officer who says he's resigning rather than get the covid vaccine admits to Hannity he's taken all the other Army vaccines, such as smallpox and anthrax, but is refusing the covid vax because "this is really about the freedom of the American people." pic.twitter.com/CkK9c3UjIz
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 23, 2021
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BFD and STFU – It’s All Down to Biden
Our friend Ed Kilgore has a piece in New York Magazine that’s worth your time to read. The gist is that the Democratic party and its tenuous control of the federal government is at a critical moment of decision. There’s now a very real chance that the President’s whole agenda could go down in flames. Remember 1994 and 2010 and then multiply one times the other. The consequences for the country and the Democratic party will be vast and hard to calculate. This isn’t just about saving Biden’s presidency. That actually gets things backwards. It’s the ability to pass legislation like this that was the point of all the effort that went into the 2018 and 2020 cycles in the first place.
I have a quibble on exactly what Ed says should happen next. But I think it’s largely a tactical one. Big picture we totally agree.
The President Wades Into The Congressional Morass
Last night, the House passed the continuing resolution that would keep the government funded for a few months and suspend the debt ceiling through next December.
Continue reading “The President Wades Into The Congressional Morass”
Where Things Stand: Loudmouthed Former Guv Gets Surprising Endorsement For Comeback Bid
Susan Collins refused to endorse Trump in 2016, and she voted to remove him during his 2020 impeachment trial.
But in 2022, she will be supporting the self-declared proto-Trump Paul LePage. (“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” the former two-term governor of Maine once opined.)
Michigan GOP Lawmaker Needs To Be Babysat At Work After Threatening His Ex
32-year-old Michigan state Rep. Steve Marino (R) now has to be chaperoned at work after telling a fellow lawmaker he used to date that he was out to “destroy” her, prompting her to get a protective order.
Continue reading “Michigan GOP Lawmaker Needs To Be Babysat At Work After Threatening His Ex”