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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Which is most still do and

At the height of the violence, support for "reasonable" violence peaked at 22%. Without looking I'd be willing to bet fewer than 10% of congressmen endorsed violence at that time. Would also bet that the majority decried it when asked.

Claims that majorities genuinely want, will want, or recently wanted riots, violence, arson, looting, and violent criminals released by lunchtime does not comport with the data. Its an irrational belief in total contradiction to the lives claim they want.

To jump into this discussion, I suspect that polls are hopelessly tenuously-connected with the on-the-ground reality. The modal American may be for peaceful protest and strong policing, but when push comes to shove and your neighborhood is caught up in the latest outrage, those 77-plus-percenters are not going to physically manifest into your city and say to the fire-starters "no, stop that, bad! We do not support this, this is not who we are!"

I've talked about this before, the idea that unpopular things can still exist and have power. Favorable polling numbers mean nothing if the implied consequence does not follow. For all I know, 77% is nowhere near enough to be a consensus, maybe you'd need to be chasing nines for "public support" to actually mean something. The numbers you quoted way above leave a staggering 23-17% of people that disagree about peaceful protest.

At the height of the violence, support for "reasonable" violence peaked at 22%.

...Which is why the media, elected officials, and the Blue social consensus machine generally actively worked to conceal the scale of the violence, and suppressed anyone who tried to do otherwise. Perhaps you recall the "mostly peaceful protest" meme? The claim, which at least half of the public appears to have bought, was that violence was sporadic and isolated, and that claims to the contrary were misinformation generated by racists and other bad people.

Claims that majorities genuinely want, will want, or recently wanted riots, violence, arson, looting, and violent criminals released by lunchtime does not comport with the data. Its an irrational belief in total contradiction to the lives claim they want.

On the other hand, I claim that roughly half the country at minimum will tolerate riots, violence, arson, looting and violent criminals released by lunchtime, as long as it's properly presented to them by the consensus machine. I claim this because I saw it happen.