Morning Briefing: Americans Fear 'More Political Violence Erupting' Before and After Election Day
Morning Briefing: Americans Fear 'More Political Violence Erupting' Before and After Election Day
The majority of registered voters believe 'there is a real possibility of more political violence erupting before and after Election Day,' according to a recently published public opinion survey.
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Morning Briefing: The majority of registered voters believe “there is a real possibility of more political violence erupting before and after Election Day,” according to a recently published Deseret News/HarrisX public opinion survey.
The survey, which was conducted online from August 2-3 and recorded responses from 1,011 registered voters, found that 64% believe that “political violence in America has gone up,” and 54% are either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” of “violence from Republicans who don’t accept the election results if Vice President Harris wins.”
The overwhelming majority of registered voters were confident in the validity of both state and local elections, however, there is a sharp partisan divide regarding the validity of federal elections. Only 57% of self-identified Republicans were “very confident” or “somewhat confident” in the validity of the results of presidential elections.
Local law enforcement is reportedly “investigating reports of a neo-Nazi group carrying flags depicting swastikas in the downtown area” of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and posted on social media “showed a group of around a dozen people dressed in red shirts and black balaclavas marching down a street while chanting ‘white power’ and flying black flags with white swastikas.”
The red and black clothing is the typical uniform aesthetic of members of Blood Tribe, a White Supremacist neo-Nazi group, which has been staging protest and marches is several communities throughout the Midwest and Northeast.
In response to the display of White Supremacists and neo-Nazi paraphernalia, about two dozen people “gathered on the steps of the Harrisburg capitol building,” and organizers said they wanted “Harrisburg to continue to be a place of love and acceptance for everyone.”
In Cloquet, Minnesota, local law enforcement is reportedly “investigating criminal damage that saw neo-Nazi and white supremacist graffiti daubed on a bridge,” and it has “since emerged that the vandalism includes a swastika and the name of white nationalist organization Patriot Front.”
Ryan Roy, among several participants at the so-called “Unite the Right” rally, has “pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for his role in the event.” However, Roy compared the charges against him to the numerous criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, and said the “entire thing is political.”
Elijah Mitchell was “indicted on multiple hate crime charges in connection with the fatal July shooting of a Venezuelan migrant in Brooklyn,” and the shooting was “allegedly motivated by anger over migrants staying at a local park.”
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Ali Breland writes that “race science is on the rise. The far right has long espoused outright racism and anti-Semitism, especially in the Trump era. But more right-wing gatekeepers are shrouding that bigotry in a cloak of objectivity and pseudoscientific justification. They see race not as a social construction, but as something that can be reduced to genetic facts. Don’t take it from us, they say; just look at the numbers and charts… The gospel of race science has not fully caught on with the broader MAGA masses yet, but you can see how it’s starting to trickle out. Race science is wrapped up in the right’s attack on Kamala Harris as the ‘DEI candidate.’ The implication is that Harris’s success can only be attributed to her race and gender, not her intellect or experience. To a race-science proponent, that’s just what the data say. No matter how hard people try, however, race cannot be reduced to the results of an IQ test. There is more to the complicated genetic, cultural, economic, and historical realities of race than a few lines on a chart.” [The Atlantic]
Jessica Pishko writes that “we’ve seen this before. Far-right, voter suppression organizations like True the Vote claimed in 2022 that they were recruiting sheriffs to help oversee ballot drop boxes, especially in swing states. At the time, Engelbrecht said, ‘[I]t’s the sheriffs, that’s who can do these investigations, that’s who we can trust.’ Most of those sheriffs were affiliated with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers’ Association (CSPOA), the most prominent “constitutional sheriff” organization. In addition to wasting resources on incompetent and fruitless investigations into ‘voter fraud’ — which is incredibly uncommon — these same sheriffs have threatened immigrants and Black Lives Matter protestors in addition to refusing to enforce laws that restrict firearms ownership and use. Many of them, including Barry County, Michigan, Sheriff Dar Leaf believe in a variety of conspiracy theories, including beliefs that globalists threaten the American way of life.” [Democracy Docket]
David Gilbert writes that “some of Donald Trump's biggest and newest supporters from finance and Silicon Valley, including Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, have spent the past several weeks trying to whitewash comments the former president and current Republican presidential nominee made in relation to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. In the past week, the Kamala Harris presidential campaign and President Joe Biden both highlighted Trump’s August 15, 2017 comment, when the former president said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the clashes that followed the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. For years, Trump supporters have defended his comments, claiming he was speaking about a nonexistent group of nonracist rallygoers who were there just to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee… But over the past few weeks, Trump’s supporters in Silicon Valley and Wall Street—some of whom began officially supporting the former president following his assassination attempt last month—have also tried to rewrite history.” [Wired]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
No more fear, only consequences.