Public support for the use of force to coerce members of Congress grew sharply among Democrats, according to a University of Chicago study.
Support for the use of force grew from nine percent to 17 percent between January 2023 to June 2023, effectively doubling, according to the study.
“While increasing across the political spectrum, the rise was the sharpest among Democrats where it grew by about 2.5 times,” a summary of the study said.
A graph in the study showed that Democrats’ support for the use of force grew from seven percent in January 2023 to 16 percent in June 2023 — a growth of nine percent.
“This growing anger parallels the Republican rise to power and proceedings in the House of Representatives,” the study said.
Meanwhile, support for the use of force among Republicans grew by six percent and Independents by eight percent.
The study said Democrats particularly supported violence to restore the federal right to abortion.
“Radical, expressly violent support to restore the federal right to abortion grew from 8 percent in January 2023 to 12 percent as of June 26, 2023, a modest but significant rise beyond the margin of survey error. The increase was sharpest among Democrats, doubling over the past 6 months from 8 to 16 percent,” the study said.
File/Activists protest during a “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally in support of abortion rights at Old Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania on September 29, 2022. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty)
“This likely indicates growing anger over the Republican controlled supreme court,” it added.
The study also said the June federal indictment of former president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is “radicalizing” support for the use of force among Republicans.
It noted that support among Americans who support the use of force to restore Trump to the presidency rose from 4.5 percent of Americans to seven percent of Americans.
The study was conducted by Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who considers himself a “liberal Republican” who has voted for Democrats.
Pape began the surveys shortly after the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
“Things are definitely heading in the wrong direction in terms of the radicalization of the country and we need to be aware of that because there were some hopes that the Trump indictment would actually reduce support for Trump,” Pape told the Guardian.
Pape said with more indictments of Trump likely to come in the next few weeks, both from the federal government and the Fulton county, Georgia, district attorney, he was concerned further radicalization of the public is likely to occur.
“Things are going in the wrong direction of radicalization, and we haven’t even gotten into the really heated part of the 2024 election season,” he told the newspaper.
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