Source – Polarization Research Lab – Holding Trump Accountable Has Not Threatened American Democracy
PhysOrg: “With a Fulton County indictment of former President Donald Trump possible at any time, law enforcement in Atlanta is bracing for potential violence, with orange barricades restricting access to the entrance of the county courthouse. With the anticipation of each new indictment has come threats of violence, decrease in trust in American justice and calls for retribution against the government. Just how concerned should Americans be that we may face another January 6th-type incident? New data from the Polarization Research Lab—a collaboration among researchers at Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University—has found that despite rhetoric from Trump and his allies, the public do not see the indictment of a former president as a reason to abandon democratic principles or as a call to support violent retribution. During the study—conducted by lab Co-Directors Yphtach Lelkes, Associate Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania; Sean J. Westwood, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College; and Derek Holliday, postdoctoral fellow with the lab, based at Stanford University—the researchers tracked public attitudes among Americans toward democratic norms, political violence, and general partisan hatred. For nearly a year, they performed daily tracking polls with nearly 30,000 survey interviews. What they found is that 97% of Americans—from both parties—oppose political violence, and the majority disapprove when politicians violate political norms.”