MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We wanted to hear more about this from someone who's been writing about and researching on this topic for some decades now. That's Robert Pape. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, and he's with us now. Good morning, professor Pape. Thanks so much for joining us.
ROBERT PAPE: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: Just amplifying what Odette just talked about here, are occurrences of political violence becoming more common in the United States?
PAPE: We are living through a watershed moment that I call the era of violent populism. We are living through an era of historic levels of political violence. You need to go back to the 1960s to see the surge of political assassinations and assassination attempts, like the assassination attempt against conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in May 2022. The assassination attempt against Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in October 2022. The two assassination attempts against candidate Trump. The assassinations and assassination attempts against Democratic leaders of the - in Minnesota in June of this year, and now the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We're also seeing high levels of support for political violence in our quarterly surveys of attitudes in the United States on political violence.
MARTIN: Oh, you've got to tell us more about that. What do you mean when you say there's high levels of support? Can you say - what do you mean?
PAPE: We have been asking questions about whether Americans support the use of force, specific tools for force - that includes political assassinations, so don't just mean yelling at people - for over four years. And our most recent survey found the highest levels yet on both the right and the left.
MARTIN: On both the right and the left, you're saying?
PAPE: On both the right and the left. Thirty-nine - in May, 39% of Democrats agreed that the use of force was justified to remove Donald Trump from the presidency.
MARTIN: Wow.
PAPE: We also found that 24% of Republicans agreed that Donald Trump was justified in using the U.S. military to suppress Democratic protesters. So what we are seeing is surprising for many people, that on both sides of the aisle, we are seeing a correspondence of high levels of support for political violence. And I'm sorry to say, we are seeing more balanced political violence, especially in the last few years. The statistics you just heard are - I'm sorry to say - out of date.
MARTIN: Do you have a sense of why so many Americans are expressing support for violence like this?
PAPE: I've been studying political violence for 30 years around the world. And around the world, big social change often leads to radical politics, which then leads to political violence. In the United States, we are going through a historic change from a white-majority democracy to a white-minority democracy for the first time in our 250-year history as a country. In 1990, we were 76% non-Hispanic white in our population. Today, that's 57%. It'll be another 10 years before we get to 49%, maybe even longer if there are mass deportations. And as you can tell, that word - mass deportations - this is why this transition corresponds with the meteoric rise of Donald Trump on the right and his signature issue of immigration, which morphed from stopping immigration to deporting millions of non-white immigrants. On the left...
MARTIN: Yeah.
PAPE: ...This has sparked radical reaction to Trump because many people are shocked. They actually like the change. And so what you're getting is, on both sides, radicalism around this big social change, which is happening.
MARTIN: So you referenced the civil rights era as being, you know, a recent peak for political violence. Is there something that we can learn from that era that would address this, that would ameliorate this? I mean, I hear in your voice this, like, deep concern for what we are seeing as many - and many people share this concern. Is there something we can learn from that era that would address this?
PAPE: The big thing we can learn is when you see social change - which, you know, in the '60s we also had - this does not fade away on its own. This is not simply an internet phenomenon, which is why deplatforming did not stop this era of violent populism. We have to worry about copycat attacks here against Republican leaders. We have to worry about spiraling violence against the left as a result of Charlie Kirk.
The big thing we need now is our political leaders need to step up and do much more. The crucial issue are joint statements - joint video statements by Democratic and Republican leaders showing the country they stand united against political violence, and they can, in fact, live together.
MARTIN: That's Robert Pape. He's a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and he's an authority on political violence in the United States and around the world. Professor Pape, thank you so much.
PAPE: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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