Who's most accepting of political violence?
The numbers that mainstream media hide, bury, or try to explain away
For five years, mainstream media have warned us that the GOP was becoming the party of the January 6 insurrection. With polls showing majorities of Republicans falsely believed the 2020 election was stolen, and voters supporting a candidate who said he would pardon the rioters, we were warned that greater political-violence-with-impunity could sweep through the American right.
Trump did win, and soon pardoned even the most violent insurrectionists — legally absolving political violence.
But while the mainstream media was calling this out, it was actively covering up a story just as big, or even bigger: rising support for violence on the left. In the new episode, what the media refuses to tell you.
Those “protests” on college campuses in which outside agitators and actual students keep flagrantly breaking laws? According to the biggest mainstream news outlets, they’re just exercising “freedom of speech” — which is exactly what right-wing media said about January 6 attackers.
And while some insurrectionists faced temporary consequences, what happened to violent students? Via JPost:
“One of two Harvard students who assaulted a Jewish classmate during an anti-Israel protest in October 2023 has been appointed as class marshal by Harvard Divinity School at the upcoming graduation ceremony. This comes just three weeks after the other assailant was awarded a $65,000 Harvard Law School fellowship to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).”
At my alma mater, Yale, another antisemitic mob stabbed a student in the eye. But the media’s message: Nothing to see here, folks. That’s because mainstream media benefits from looking the other way.
Many conservative audiences have left these news agencies in the dust. So in the desperate search for clicks, these agencies appeal to increasingly radicalized people on the left. They use increasingly extreme headlines and give up more and more journalistic standards.
It’s no wonder they now treat propaganda agencies as sources of news.
Support for political violence doubles
Which groups in America support political violence the most? In the new episode, you’ll hear key quotes from Robert Pape, founding director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST):
“Our May survey was the most worrisome. About 40% of Democrats supported the use of force to remove Mr. Trump from the presidency, and about 25% of Republicans supported the use of the military to stop protests against Mr. Trump's agenda. These numbers more than doubled since last fall.”
He then discussed a study his group did together with the Anti-Defamation League, which showed a vicious cycle between antisemitism and “support for the use of force in the service of both right-leaning and left-leaning causes.” He noted that these are “seemingly unrelated grievances.” (Note: Pape wrote this in an op-ed for The New York Times, which I generally don’t link to because it has become such a disaster. But if you must read it, do so for free.)
Those who know history see why this makes sense. Every hate movement needs a minority to scapegoat. And there’s almost never a better option than the People of Israel/Judea/Zion (“Jews”), who don’t proselytize and insist on surviving.
The far-right and far-left movements have other major features in common as well. They’re both anti-democratic and built around false victim narratives. To see those in action, look at what the BBC is currently doing:
The best way to combat all this is to bring people together around shared understandings of facts. The media isn’t doing this. That’s why They Stand Corrected exists.
You can tell the media to stop the madness:
Share your thoughts, questions, links and more in the comments or by messaging me here.
JL