Three Points to Lower Anxiety About Election Violence

A recent survey found 73% of Americans are very worried about political violence, particularly around elections. Concerns about election distrust, potentially violent protests, and the rise in threats against election workers are all valid. However, it’s important that we put our fears into perspective. 

Overstated fears of political violence can create a self-reinforcing cycle of fear and anger that makes violence more likely. 

Here are three key points to help lower your blood pressure over the next three weeks:

1. Support for violence is lower than you may think

Some headlines have promoted the idea that support for political violence in America is as high as 40%! However, Sean Westwood, Director of the Polarization Research Lab, has shown the real figure is closer to 3% (and other studies have supported that lower estimate). That’s still a concerning number — but a far cry from the oft-cited larger numbers. 

Part of the confusion comes from weak survey methods and from people using surveys to vent their frustrations. Also muddying the waters in these areas is the fact that hate crimes may be grouped in with political violence. “There’s certainly a political component to [those kinds] of violence,” said Sean Westwood, “but it’s very different from an assassination attempt on a political leader.”

The assassination attempts on Trump resulted in many team-based interpretations, but interestingly and on a more hopeful note, support for violence decreased after those events. This shows that violent acts don’t necessarily lead to more violence and can even push people away from it.

2. Individuals don’t represent groups

When violent acts occur, people often use them to confirm negative stereotypes about their political opponents. For instance, after the assassination attempt on Trump, some of his supporters thought, “This is what the ‘other side’ is like; this is what they want.” If the roles were reversed and someone had tried to kill Biden, some of these same people would find themselves thinking things like, “That troubled individual’s actions don’t reflect my large and complex group.”

This dynamic is key to understanding our different reactions to so many events and behaviors around us. We naturally filter for the most negative interpretations of things associated with the “other side” and the most positive interpretations of things on “our side.”

3. Covid may have amplified our fears of each other

For Democrat-leaning voters, the January 6th Capitol attack played a role in shaping concerns about the violence the “other side” is capable of. Among Republican-leaning voters, violence at George Floyd-related protests has played a similar role. (This is not to compare these fears; it’s just to examine their role in affecting perceptions.)

It’s important to remember those events happened at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The disease itself, and restrictions put in place to combat it, led to stress for many people — both financial and psychological. In addition to the stress, many people had a lot of free time and many were spending a lot more time online. 

As Brian Michael Jenkins put it: “Deprived of their daily routines and personal relationships, people are disoriented, disillusioned and isolated — creating a receptive audience for fringe ideas.” 

This isn’t to excuse violent and illegal acts; it’s to help understand why violence may have been made more likely during that time. Seeing that those events occurred during an unusual and particularly stressful time can temper our fears of each other now. 

Striving for realistic and nuanced views

Political violence is a concern; we’re not saying there is nothing to worry about. However, overstating the threat can ramp up tensions, making conflict more likely. For one thing, extremists may be more likely to engage in violence if they think they have more support from fellow citizens than they actually do. 

Political scientist Thomas Zeitzoff makes the point that overstated fears of violence can distract us from more realistic and common ways political hostilities play out (for example, the use of legal and legislative maneuvers). 

To minimize toxicity and there by the likelihood of violence, we can work to correct our distorted views of each other. We can avoid reacting in team-based, conflict-amplifying ways when bad and scary events occur (as they inevitably will). We can seek to criticize and speak out against political violence while avoiding speaking in simplistic, “they’re all the same” ways about our political opponents. 

And we know we can act in these depolarizing ways even while we advocate strongly for our political beliefs and goals.

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