1w ago

Why most polls overstate support for political violence

www.gelliottmorris.com

A new poll from NPR, PBS, and Marist College published on Wednesday, Oct. 2, shows a “striking change in Americans’ views on political violence.” We have grown much more violent as a country over the last year, NPR reports, with the share of U.S. adults who agree with the statement “Americans may have to resort to violence to get the country back on track” growing from 20 to 30% over the last 18 months.
This is scary data indeed. In NPR’s coverage of the poll, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University, says the data is “horrific”: “It’s just a horrific moment to see that people believe, honestly believe that there’s no other alternative at this point than to resort to political violence.” Where does America go from here?
But here’s the thing: The NPR/PBS/Marist poll did not ask people if they believed “there’s no other alternative at this point than to resort to political violence.” The survey asks adults whether or not they agree with the statement that people “may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.” This is comparatively a much weaker statement and comes with a potentially heavy dose of measurement error. Respondents are asked to imagine a hypothetical scenario in which they’d have to commit acts of violence against a vague, unspecified victim. Maybe that means taking up arms against the government or their neighbors, or perhaps it just means throwing a rock at a cop or through a shop door.
The problem with polls and reports like this, in other words, is that they are not asking about the “political violence” we are imagining in our heads: An insurrection at the Capitol; driving a car through a crowd of protestors; shooting an activist you don’t like with a sniper rifle. The unfortunate reality (especially for those of us who care about democracy and what the people think) is that this survey does not ask whether Americans support certain acts of violence against their neighbors, even though that’s what the poll is being used as evidence for.
This disconnect between what is being polled and what is being talked about is part of a broader pattern I’ve pointed out in my recent coverage of political violence: Most polls overestimate mass support for political violence. I explain why this is the case, and why this is important for everyone from pollsters to elite journalists to casual news consumers to reckon with.

people “may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track"

I'm just not seeing how significantly different this is from the other reporting.

The problem with polls and reports like this, in other words, is that they are not asking about the “political violence” we are imagining in our heads: An insurrection at the Capitol; driving a car through a crowd of protestors; shooting an activist you don’t like with a sniper rifle.

It doesn't matter. The point of the poll is that before, people would have said "no, never is political violence necessary", and now more are saying "yes, maybe". That is in fact showing a huge increase in acceptance of political violence as a legitimate force of change in peoples' minds, regardless of what form that violence takes.

I read through to one of the author's other posts, and I think they're working off a badly flawed basic premise. They title the post: People are more likely to support partisan violence when they think the other party does too, and the post is about how studies show that when people are told that their 'opponents' are more okay with violence, they then become more okay with violence against their opponents.

The author then concludes that this shows that peoples' support for violence is overinflated, but really it shows the opposite; conditional support for violence... is still support for violence. If we don't accept that premise, then the only 'true' supporters of political violence are people who have already committed it, because everyone else who hasn't but is okay with it if the right conditions are met, isn't (in the author's estimation) actually supportive of it as it's 'only' conditional.

Comments

TheRtRevKaiser @beehaw.org 1w ago
Fantastic article. I've had similar thoughts when reading articles on that Marist poll in particular, it seemed like a much weaker statement than most of the coverage was implying.
t3rmit3 @beehaw.org 1w ago

people “may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track"
I'm just not seeing how significantly different this is from the other reporting.
The problem with polls and reports like this, in other words, is that they are not asking about the “political violence” we are imagining in our heads: An insurrection at the Capitol; driving a car through a crowd of protestors; shooting an activist you don’t like with a sniper rifle.
It doesn't matter. The point of the poll is that before, people would have said "no, never is political violence necessary", and now more are saying "yes, maybe". That is in fact showing a huge increase in acceptance of political violence as a legitimate force of change in peoples' minds, regardless of what form that violence takes.
I read through to one of the author's other posts, and I think they're working off a badly flawed basic premise. They title the post: People are more likely to support partisan violence when they think the other party does too, and the post is about how studies show that when people are told that their 'opponents' are more okay with violence, they then become more okay with violence against their opponents.
The author then concludes that this shows that peoples' support for violence is overinflated, but really it shows the opposite; conditional support for violence... is still support for violence. If we don't accept that premise, then the only 'true' supporters of political violence are people who have already committed it, because everyone else who hasn't but is okay with it if the right conditions are met, isn't (in the author's estimation) actually supportive of it as it's 'only' conditional.