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When Political Violence Becomes Acceptable
American Thinker ^ | 5 Oct, 2026 | Brian C. Joondeph

Posted on 10/05/2026 5:07:03 AM PDT by MtnClimber

When political opponents become existential threats, violence can begin to look like virtue.

America traditionally has had a rather simple method for dealing with politicians we don’t like.

We vote against them.

We argue, campaign, write letters, give speeches, hold rallies, donate money, put obnoxious signs in our yards, and ultimately go to the ballot box.

What we don’t do is shoot them.

Or at least that used to be the understanding.

Some disturbing new polling suggests that boundary is eroding. The Overton Window on political disagreement is shifting.

University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, recently described new survey results indicating that 25 percent of American adults support “the use of force to prevent President Trump from being president.” Among self-identified Democrats, the share was an astonishing 44 percent.

That isn’t some tiny collection of basement-dwelling extremists.

It is nearly half of Democrats surveyed.

And what exactly does “force” mean?

Pape says his research group has explored that question through focus groups and survey experiments. Among those endorsing force against Trump, he says 55 percent understood it to include assassinating the president with a rifle, as in the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

We are a long way from disagreeing about marginal tax rates or military budgets.

Political violence should be unacceptable regardless of whose fist, rifle, Molotov cocktail, or government bayonet is involved.

But the extraordinary growth in support for force specifically to remove Donald Trump raises another question.

How did we get here?

Perhaps part of the answer is hiding in plain sight.

For years Americans have been told that Donald Trump isn’t merely a bad president or a politician with bad ideas. He has been compared repeatedly to Adolf Hitler

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: antifa; blmriots; butlerpa; leftism; mostlypeacefularson; mostlypeacefulmurder; mostlypeacefulooting

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1 posted on 10/05/2026 5:07:03 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

It is clearly a leftist strategy.


2 posted on 10/05/2026 5:07:16 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

It became acceptable to Democrats during the 1968 convention in Chicago.


3 posted on 10/05/2026 5:14:41 AM PDT by ComputerGuy
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To: ComputerGuy

Reagan, Dubya, Trump, all were called Nazis by the Left. Also our candidates, Romney, McCain, etc.

The Left doesn’t have rational arguments to support their policies, so they resort to this dangerous rhetoric.


4 posted on 10/05/2026 5:21:47 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: MtnClimber

The problem is that it isn’t Trump. It’s going to be everyone who opposes the Socialists, even Democrats.


5 posted on 10/05/2026 5:22:17 AM PDT by AppyPappy (They don't call you a Nazi because they think you are one. They do it to justify violence. )
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To: FreedomPoster

No matter which path the leftists choose, revolution is the first step. They have to tear something down. That’s how they get their kicks.


6 posted on 10/05/2026 5:27:12 AM PDT by ComputerGuy
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To: MtnClimber

THey tried Oramge MAn BAd.

It did not work.

They are still doing it, playing a cracked record repeatedly and desperately. Its why CNN and MSNBC were kicked out of the WH press corps , and kicked off AF 1.They were fabricating grand scandals i thhis lead up top the mid terms.

Can the MSM create CW II? They seem to want that.

America needs to vote against these lefty fascists.Wolesale.

Or we can simply wait and shoot them in their blue states if it comes to that.It would be over very quickly using the Insurrection Act.


7 posted on 10/05/2026 5:29:40 AM PDT by Candor7 ( Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!<img src="" width=300</img><a href="">tag</a>))
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To: MtnClimber
Number one, people in general have completely turned their backs on God in this nation. THAT is the main problem. Once a people do that, ANYTHING goes. Once we are fighting a civil war and become weakened, another nation will conquer us. The bloodshed will be horrific.

An elder at the church HERE IN TEXAS with whom I go to church said as a group of men sat at informal get together in town about a month and a half ago, "We have to get rid of Trump no matter what it takes." I was (and still am) in shock. I do not have any idea how he became that brainwashed, but he is. Done. Toast. You tell me where we are headed. Tell me.

8 posted on 10/05/2026 5:31:59 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: MtnClimber

The left thrives on hyperbole. They must be ginned up into a frothing hysteria over any issue. It actually has become tiresome.


9 posted on 10/05/2026 5:34:03 AM PDT by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: MtnClimber

Kill Charlie Kirk? Sure, why not? I mean, my gas prices are too high so murder away as long as my gas is cheap and things are “affordable.”


10 posted on 10/05/2026 5:49:07 AM PDT by FlipWilson
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To: FlipWilson

What happens when they’re violent, we’re not and we can’t get a majority because all the fence sitters are sheep?


11 posted on 10/05/2026 5:53:19 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin

What did you say back to him?


12 posted on 10/05/2026 6:09:11 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: MtnClimber

“Accepted” is one thing. It’s been “accepted” for a long time. When Luigi Mangione became a folk hero, it moved from merely “accepted” to “revered”.

Just like Gavrilov Princip is a folk hero for the ages in Serbia.

As for Charlie Kirk, when the standard trope amongst the loudest elements of the current, societal zeitgeist was to refer to the late Mr. Kirk as: “The official Horst Wessel of MAGAts,” I think even some of the dimmer people finally started to realise just how dangerous these current times we find ourselves in have become.


13 posted on 10/05/2026 6:22:30 AM PDT by Kriggerel ("All great truths are hard and bitter, but lies... are sweeter than wild honey" (Ragnar Redbeard))
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To: MtnClimber; All

That’s when you start building furnaces to solve your social problems


14 posted on 10/05/2026 6:31:52 AM PDT by SMARTY (In politics, stupidity is not a handicap. Napoleon Bonaparte I)
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To: MtnClimber

How did we get here?

Democrats. Going back to the late sixties tbey called anyone who politically disagreed with them a “NAZI”. Anyone who actually believes that, and they do, will naturally consider killing an option.


15 posted on 10/05/2026 7:09:59 AM PDT by TalBlack (An old man does not die in the country into which he was born.)
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To: MtnClimber

Yep


16 posted on 10/05/2026 7:11:10 AM PDT by sauropod ("They eventually succomb to the dollar" - President Donald J. Trump Ne supra crepidam)
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To: AppyPappy
The problem is that it isn’t Trump. It’s going to be everyone who opposes the Socialists, even Democrats.

EXACTLY!
17 posted on 10/05/2026 7:21:23 AM PDT by wafflehouse ("there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon" -Alice's Restaurant Massacree)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

the problem is they control the media. so at some point as leftist violence continues, there will be someone on the other side also pull something. and at that point it will be all over every front page and whoever is that target of ‘far right wing militant’ violence will become the martyr and/or darling of the media in perpetuity.


18 posted on 10/05/2026 7:24:10 AM PDT by wafflehouse ("there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon" -Alice's Restaurant Massacree)
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To: MtnClimber

As prolifers...


19 posted on 10/05/2026 9:09:35 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
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To: ComputerGuy
In 1828 when Andy "Ol' Crook" Jackson's thug supporters when around beating, murdering and burning out people who were not overwhelmed by the lying bastard's wonderfulness.

Democrats WILL democrat.

Why the heck does this seem to surprise people EVERY time it happens?

There is a long period of time before yesterday. People should read about it.

20 posted on 10/05/2026 9:39:46 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (I just want FReepers to READ THE ARTICLE. And then think 30 secs before pounding keyboard.)
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