Half of Republicans Expect Americans to 'Take the Law into Their Own Hands': Survey
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Rudy TakalaJul 30th, 2021, 8:29 pm Twitter share button <?php // Post Body ?> 
Nearly half of Republican voters see a time coming where Americans will "have take the law into their own hands," according to a new survey.
The poll, conducted by YouGov, found 47 percent of Republican voters agreed with the statement, "A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands." Nine percent of Democrats said the same.
The difference could stem, in part, from divergent views on election integrity. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans said they were "confident" the 2022 midterm elections would be conducted properly, a decline from the 46 percent who said the same headed into the 2020 election. Democrats said they had faith in both elections, respectively, by 76 percent and 75 percent.
The study also found sharp divisions related to Covid-19. Twenty percent of respondents said they had no intention of taking a vaccine to prevent it, while 10 percent said they were not sure. Thirty percent said the pandemic was "sufficiently controlled" for Americans to resume their regular routines, while 35 percent said it would not be sufficiently controlled until the end of the year, and 18 percent said it would take even longer.
President Joe Biden held a slight edge among respondents, with 51 percent saying they "somewhat" or "strongly" approved of his job performance compared to 46.7 percent who said they disapproved.
The survey included 1,723 registered voters who participated from June 4-23. The margin of error was 2.3 percentage points.
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Plain as day.
I believe this is because most white Christian conservatives think they are America and thus are the law, and most Republicans are white Christian conservatives. The fact that nearly half of them fantasize about violently taking over the government, something many of their bigoted conservative ancestors already tried to do 160 years ago, shouldn't be much of a surprise.
Or more than likely, the Defund The Police mantra spoken by the left which has in fact left many American cities and Americans to fend for themselves as the lawless and predators of society run rampant knowing full well that there will very likely be no repercussions for their actions.
As is often said, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.". Unfortunately, those minutes are now stretching into the quarter, half and hours long wait.
This sentence shows that you do not know what "defund the police" actually means, yet you have no problem repeating it.
Then enlighten me with your contrived brilliance and all knowing prowess.
TBH, "Defund the Police" is a really lousy slogan. Yes, I understand what it's about, and support using mental health professionals to deescalate potentially violent situations where possible, which would require diverting funds. And yes, I also think police for the most part do not need to be armed to the point that they look like a special ops team in the middle of enemy territory.
But...
In a world that doesn't pay attention beyond a soundbite, "defund the police" was bound to lead to misunderstandings. I have law enforcement friends who think it means cutting police salaries. Yes, they should try to be better informed, but the message, to them, is inflammatory.
Maybe "Partner with the Police" would be better.
It was the dumbest possible slogan they could have adopted. They may as well have adopted “let criminals run rampant” because as you said, these days no one is going to look beyond those first 3 words.
Really? Even I know it doesn't mean that and they have a union...
I agree about the slogan though, stupid. Though I think it was meant to be inflammatory to bring attention. Then once again that would mean people would have to look past a headline, past a slogan.
Yeah, but try telling that to some people who seem to have married themselves to that slogan. They are too blind to see that their message is lost in terrible phrasing. They put the onus on everyone else to ferret out their real meaning. It never occurs to them that their slogan pretty much ensures that they will lose the attention of those they are trying to convince. Honey and vinegar.
Yes, unfortunately.
I think this is the police that needs defunding:
Until you are in danger then you would complain they did not come to your aid.
Can't have it both ways.
I don't expect to ever have need of anti-riot robocops.
Well, I guess those who partake would never want them to show up.
Also those who would prefer to avoid violence rather than repress it.
You think we should defund police in riot gear, after the summer of riots and looting?
Why?
What we have learned is that far leftists are beginning to catch heat for their "defund the police" mantra that will be the downfall of democrats next year.
Because of this, they are now changing their tune by
1. blaming republicans for making the "defund the police" claim....which failed, BTW, and
2. do the usual liberal thing and change the meaning of a word/statement to deflect from what they screwed up in the beginning.
Those are not trump cards. They are deuces!
What is it like to have someone that has been out of office for more than half a year in your mind living rent free?
Your post didn't even make sense.
And yet, it is accurate for many on the left. Just look at JBB down below. He shows police in riot gear. Presumably there's a riot, or potential riot, that they are facing, yet he wants to defund police ability to respond to riots. Or, at least, put them in uniforms of calming pastel colors with hats that say "Emergency Hug Response Team" or something. For those who spray paint ACAB or scream it every chance they get, defunding the police is exactly what they mean.
On the other side of the coin, there's no denying that policing in America has a serious problem. Some people like to make it out to be racial but if you want to know the truth, there's thousands of vids on YouTube of cops acting badly and it seems irrespective of race. The largest problem I have seen to date is that police are undertrained and don't seem to know what the law is they are supposed to be upholding. There seems to be a pervasive idea out there that, because they are police officers, anything they do or demand you do is legal. Many of them don't understand what the law is concerning even the most basic interaction with a citizen. And when a citizen stands on their rights, many times the cops escalate the situation needlessly when they are supposed to de-escalate it.
"Partnering with the Police" sounds fine and all. I can even agree with it to a point, but not one penny should be taken from policing. What should be done is take some of the money in policing and use it to better train police. Educating them on at least basic things, such as, no, just because you're a police officer doesn't mean someone has to give you their ID just because you demand it, in most states.
Lastly, it isn't just all on the police. All of us have to understand that even the best cop is doing an impossible-to-do-perfectly job. A crime has been committed. There's a description of the perp. They detain someone nearby who happens not to be the perp and is, in fact, totally innocent. The innocent perp gets angry and demands his rights and all that. The cops can't let him go without investigating. Things escalate. It's a no win scenario unless the innocent man understands the police's position and does what he can to cooperate. But even that's often a no-win because often the cops operate as if they've already proven the case and are convinced this is the guy, making it dangerous to cooperate too much. Welcome to humanity.
You have no idea what I want.
I would venture to say that that's not the view of the majority on the left.
I would say that should be dependent on the need for policing. If we can address some of the issues that lead to violence, such as domestic abuse and substance abuse problems, we may well find we don't need as many police officers, not to mention correctional facilities or corrections officers.
I think my local cops are, for the most part, great at what they do. They actually do try to deescalate situations that could turn ugly. I've seen them do it. They're great at it.
But once in a great while, they do something that makes me shake my head. This past winter, after a snow/ice storm, my son and I went to my office to shovel the sidewalk. Because ice had frozen over the snow, it was slow going, and the tenant in the upstairs apartment came down to help us. He had been working on it earlier, but had broken his snow shovel (yes, it was that hard to shovel).
A town police officer stopped by. A cadet had run away from a military academy a few blocks away, and they were looking for him. The military academy athletic wear is gray sweat pants and a gray hoodie. Pretty nondescript. My neighbor was wearing gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt, with a hoodie laying on the hood of his car. But he's 32 years old - obviously not a high school student. He has a beard, which I believe is against the academy's dress code. It took me a few minutes to convince the cop that no, this was not the person they were looking for. It shouldn't have taken that long, because if the kid who ran away was serious about escaping, he'd hardly have gone two blocks and then stopped to shovel snow 4 blocks away from the police station. All of that came to my mind pretty quickly, and most of it should have come to the officer's mind pretty quickly, too.
My neighbor has done time in prison, which he's always been very honest about. He was selling drugs, and got caught. He has turned his life around (except for an unfortunate choice of girlfriend), and just finished serving his probation. I could see in his eyes that he was terrified that he was in trouble, especially when it took several times for the officer to believe my assurances that he was not a runaway cadet.
I couldn't say for sure, myself. There's a backlash coming from defund the police and it isn't all coming from the right. That tells me moderate Dems can recognize a bad idea when they see it.
Considering all the violence currently going on, it seems to be quite high at the moment.
I have my doubts about how effective any number of public programs will be on such problems but, okay. Wouldn't it make more sense to have such programs and, should they be effective, then reduce the number of police, correctional facilities and corrections officers?
Yeah, like that. Should have been a no brainer for the cop but for whatever reason, they sometimes don't want to let go. Like a police dog that can't wait to bite someone. I believe they sometimes have it in their minds they are some different part of society and not part of the rest of us. Like sheepdogs herding sheep. Some seem to think of us as sheep to be intimidated. That's why so many people tell you that if a cop is talking to you the cop is not your friend. It may seem like a casual conversation but often, the cop is fishing for something. Like there's cops and the rest of us and the rest of us are all guilty. They just have to be smart enough to figure out what we are guilty of.
I'm fine with that.
If Antifa showed up in my hometown repressing it is the only way we would’ve choose to avoid it. Especially since it would have arrived from out of town and likely out of state.
It was a poorly enacted hashtag for sure. My neighbor is a diehard trump supporter, (and one of my best friends), he completely supports the, "defund police" movement. I do not.
Republicans supporting vigilantism isn't something new. Blaming the left for the actions of the right is as weak an argument as I have seen.
Yep...
Great. At least one of you have more than two brain cells to rub together.
However, let's forget "hashtags" for a moment and look a little deeper shall we? Try these on for size.
Will this be better?
If that's not sufficient, try this on for size;
So, regardless of what you and others THINK it means, as you and for the most part those others have no power to accomplish anything, the people WITH the power to accomplish defund and dismantle programs think otherwise.
Defending against lawless predators is hardly vigilantism. It's called defense.
The epicenter for 'defund the police' is Minneapolis. Liberal activists around the country has glommed onto 'defund the police' but, as usual, those liberal activists are blowing blue smoke out their backsides.
Defund the police means what is says. Police departments are to be abolished and replaced with departments of public safety. The newly created dept. of public safety would function under the authority of the public health department. The mayor would not have direct authority over the new dept. of public safety. Replacing police departments with departments of public safety would be a shift away from proactive deterrence of crime toward reactive response to crime.
The complaints leveled at police have mostly been about efforts to proactively deter crime. Deterrence requires actively patrolling neighborhoods, making police stops, and interfering with suspicious activity. Defund the police is supposed to curtail those efforts at deterrence; the police are only supposed to respond and not deter. Public safety officers would only become involved after a crime has been committed.
Defund the police is supposed to end the so called 'broken windows' approach to preventing and deterring crime. But defunding the police doesn't include alternatives that continue proactive efforts to prevent and deter crime.
Exactly. If BLM/Antifa had taken their rioting / looting/arson/vandalism, bodily mayhem into red communities that 47% would have become an actual reality last year instead of a hypothetical question this year.
The problem is that most don't know the law from a hole in the ground. The people that attacked the capitol insist they are patriots following the constitution even though they were threatening to hang Mike Pence for doing exactly what the constitution said he was supposed to do...
Taking the law into one's own hands rarely has a positive outcome and should be a last resort. (IMHO)
Ahmed Aubry is another case that comes to mind.
Another problem is that too many republicans feel that the law does not apply to themselves.
The 1/6 terrorists took the law into their own hands. How's that working out for them?
The rioters are being prosecuted.
But, how many of the thousands of rioters / looters / arsonists / killers of as one politician put it "The summer of love" have been apprehended or prosecuted?
My guess is quite a few have been prosecuted. Surely many were arrested. They weren't stupid enough to post video of their crimes on facebook though. I guess they were hoping for a pardon because nobody's that stupid are they?
Your guess is actually wrong. Charges have been dropped.
A few that could be identified but nowhere near the numbers that were responsible.
Hardly. Besides they had the media doing all the filming while the media talking heads were saying moronic things like "mostly peaceful" with a building going up in flames in the background.
When you post a video on facebook of yourself breaking windows and assaulting cops with a caption "This is me busting into the Capitol to stop the steal." you are essentially prosecuting yourself. Now they're all wondering "What happened to my white privilege?" BLM protesters don't assume they have white privilege.
Very true. They have radical far left we can do what we want, when we want privilege, and we have morons in office supporting and raising funds to bail our pathetic asses out of jail privilege.
Thanks to the needed tightening of election laws in many states, election integrity is more likely going forward.
Interesting to see Biden's approval ratings continuing to drift downward.
Why was it needed?
Drift is putting it mildly. It's like putting a destroyers anchor on a fishing bob or a sub doing an emergency DIVE.
I don't know the source. The results are only what is to be expected.
It’s such a vague statement on its face, it’s hard to know what anyone thought it meant. Chasing a trespasser off of your property could be “taking the law into your own hands.”
Reading through the comments here, some people seem to think that those responding to the poll are going to take the law into their own hands.
That isn't what the poll asked, though.
The absolute arrogance of the minority wanting to "own the libs" over law and order and after preaching and preaching against the "libs" to solve it at the ballot box after Gore.
There are fewer registered Republicans than Democrats nationally and yet through extreme gerrymandering is the only way they win. Republicans haven't won the popular vote for President enough times in the last 50 or 60 years to make ludicrous claims that they are the "majority". They are not.
The fact they are not the majority is the cause of so much exploited angst manipulated by callous Republican politicians to believe things that are not true.
There is no hope for redemption when one party has exploited their own base to the point of letting them die. Republicans who are happily parading a set of talking points to rile up their base while those politicians get vaxxed safely. It's only just dawning on Republicans they have played the base so long that with the number of deaths and hospitalizations in poor southern states and in "red states", that they are losing the very voters that blindly accept their lies.
It is Republicans who fail to unite this country to keep America healthy and safe. Ask the politician from Tennessee who was a rabid ant-vaxx, anti-mask Republican only to suffer in the hospital for 8 months eventually needing a liver transplant to save his life. Now he is back in Washington and has become a vaccine advocate. He realized after he nearly died that so many in red states are dying. He is promoting vaccines trying to backtrack on his own lies that got his own constituents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of "owning the libs".
Yet Democrats are still advocating for any and all safety measures even if it saves those in red states because no one regardless of politics should die because they have been lied to by the very Republican politicians that the base voted for.
Violence against the "libs" will never restore "civility", it will never create unity, and the smugness of knowing that the "libs" do not want to hurt them, but they have no problem thinking the worst and harden their hearts against their fellow Americans who are just trying to get through this and then thinking they have the right to violence over political disagreements.
Disagree on policy but face the facts of staying alive in a pandemic because there will always be those we disagree with before, during and after the pandemic. The virus is the only violence going on right now and it cares nothing for your political party affiliation.
Shootings have increased which make the news and make people nervous, but overall crime has gone down. But good luck douchebags. Vigilantism rarely works out well.