> Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel.
8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for.
Given how weird some of the internet surveys have been in the past year, I don't take singular polls all that seriously. These polls seem to end up extremely skewed toward subjects who overestimate small probabilities.
For a reality check, consider that 1/8th of respondents said they would be willing to commit political violence themselves and 7.1% of respondents said they'd be willing to kill someone over politics.
> 12.2% were willing to commit political violence themselves ″to threaten or intimidate a person,″ 10.4% ″to injure a person,″ and 7.1% ″to kill a person.″
And to cap it off, 4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon:
> and 4.0% thought it at least somewhat likely that ″I will shoot someone with a gun.″
Yeah, I don't think so. This feels like a survey of people who consume too much news and social media and have become increasingly disconnected from the reality on the ground.
These panel surveys are reasonably good. The better pollsters (like Ipsos MORI) spend a decent amount of effort recruiting a broad sample of people for their panels, and results are statistically adjusted for non-response bias etc. That said, the usual problem with political polling (that you can only poll people willing to answer pollsters' questions) applies extra here, as all respondents have agreed to be part of a panel and be repeatedly surveyed. As most panels are done through the Internet, it's at least possible that the participants are more terminally online than the average American.
That said, I don't think the results are crazy, on their face (though I don't myself expect a civil war). There are a number of groups openly proposing political violence, increased partisan polarisation, and a breakdown in the normal political processes (Congress has been essentially non-functional for a while, the Supreme Court have taken a decidedly activist turn, state legislatures are actively discussing subverting the next Presidential election, and trust in politicians of all parties is at historical lows). It's not clear how these will be resolved, and a further increase in political violence is certainly a possibility. Will that amount to civil war? Not close, in my view, but we live in unusual political times.
Hasn't 60% of the population of Texas expected a civil war soon for the last 100 years? And what are those rebel flags all about? It's posturing. Just like all of those surveys that say 50% of tech workers anticipate quitting this year.
Nearly all the places that talk about secession are the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend. Which is both why it would be a terrible idea, and why people get upset about it. Few people who know they are getting a handout enjoy having everybody else know it, and it makes them bristly.
> 8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited
This is from the PDF listed on the page that you linked:
To establish a nationally representative panel, members are recruited on
an ongoing basis through address-based probability sampling using data
from the US Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. Recruited adults in
households without internet access are provided a web-enabled device and
free internet service. A probability-proportional-to-size procedure was
used to select a study-specific sample. All panel members who were aged
18 years and older were eligible for selection. Invitations were sent by
e-mail; automatic reminders were delivered to non-respondents by e-mail
and telephone beginning 3 days later.
A final survey weight variable provided by Ipsos adjusted for the
initial probability of selection into KnowledgePanel and for
survey-specific nonresponse and over- or under-coverage using design
weights with post-stratification raking ratio adjustments. With
weighting, the sample is designed to be statistically representative of
the noninstitutionalized adult population of the US as reflected in the
2021 March supplement of the Current Population Survey.
I wonder if that's in the context of a civil war. As in was the question something like: "In the event of a civil war, would you...?" Because than it makes more sense to me.
It's one thing to be willing to fight in a civil war, which involves all of the things you just mentioned, and another thing entirely to want to instigate those things.
One thing that gives me comfort is that there is a difference between what they say on a poll, and what they actually do.
Plenty of people are willing to say "I am willing to commit violence" on social media. My gut feeling is that if 4% say they will shoot someone, < 0.4% will actually do it.
The article itself espouses similar doubts from one of its subjects:
>Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was also not involved in the study, agrees. But she suspects the survey responses overrepresent the number of Americans who would be willing to turn to violence because, she says, surveys tend to overstate what people actually think. “The numbers always tend to be shocking, but in essence, are probably not true.”
Hardly sensational to lead with "all this is probably BS" but that probably wouldn't get as many clicks. For sure the alarmist title got me to read it, only to wind up feeling I wasted my time.
I guess it depends on what you count as "over politics" - I think a lot of people would be willing to engage in violent resistance to something like "the president declares the constitution suspended and all elections indefinitely postponed", but not to something like "the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell vs Hodges". I find the referenced numbers perfectly plausible if they interpret the question to mean something like the former.
>> Yeah, I don't think so. This feels like a survey of people who consume too much news and social media and have become increasingly disconnected from the reality on the ground.
This says it all. The talk is there, social media (or any one who will listen) seems to be a popular public journal for people to vent feelings and use it as therapy. I even have friends that txt their anxiety about the political situation and when it reaches peek anxiety, the words civil war get thrown in there. But, it's clearly just a way to release the temporary anxiety they are feeling after having spent too much time consuming click-bait media - most people are too comfortable and self-serving in their lives to engage in long term life and death violence.
People here really did not do well, mentally or physically, when they were told they could not gather at bars or restaurants for months. And they really didnt like the disruptions to the sports seasons. The majority are not the extremist (be its very definition) that would actually be willing to give up football on Sunday to cosplay civil war 2.0.
Also, the logistics are not there - not that I can see anyway. Many people would defend their home and cities, but wont be motivated to march thousands of miles into unfamiliar neighborhoods to get shot at by g'ma and a 8 y/o. I think people, even other Americans, underestimate the actual patriotism of people in this country.
News are in crisis and try to make more and more sensation articles like this.
If creating parallel world is new normal for journalists then loosing trust of public in news is natural.
I hope that manipulation and government propaganda pushed in news will be naturally eliminated. The question is, how far they will go to keep our attention.
Given how weird some of the internet surveys have been in the past year, I don't take singular polls all that seriously.
While you're right that polling that has traditionally been spot-on, or very close in the past has occasionally been way off in the last five to ten years.
However, isn't Ipsos a fairly well-respected organization in its field? The kind with enough experience and resources to account for any kind of biases?
I'd like to see another big polling organization as the same questions and see if the results are the same.
4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon
So, if there's a 4% margin of error, it's could be either 8%, or 0%.
> For a reality check, consider that 1/8th of respondents said they would be willing to commit political violence themselves and 7.1% of respondents said they'd be willing to kill someone over politics.
God help us. It's almost impressive how biased this sample is. I'm dying to know what else the "Ipsos KnowledgePanel" thinks. Will report back with any eye rollers.
4% is roughly "Lizardman's Constant", i.e. the percentage of people who will answer "Yes" to poll questions no matter how ridiculous the question is, so I would hope most of them don't actually believe that they will shoot someone soon.
Sadly, even a small, concerted group of violent actors can terrorize a society. I don't think the paramilitary core of the Nazis were a particularly large part of German Society, for example. That doesn't mean that an outright civil war would break out, but it does mean that all it takes is an organized group to upset the political balance, and disturb long respected norms.
In my opinion, the extreme right-wing is building themselves up to begin politicide. For the past year, we've seen daily news stories as Republican extremists don’t just say that Democrats are wrong, but that they are evil. This is a classic authoritarian method of vilifying your opponent both as corrupt and subhuman.
Having just read about the Spanish Civil War, I can see how this will potentially play out.
It will begin with a high profile assassination, then the extreme right will use the protests that will follow as justification for escalating violence, similar to the BLM protests. More violence. Maybe another high profile killing (on either side). Tit-for-tat murders begin, as they have in various government collapses around the world, especially in the 20th century.
The extreme left will undoubtedly respond in various ways beyond protests as tensions grow and the right will use whatever happens as propaganda to enrage their already agitated base. Whacko conspiracy theories and disinformation will make Trump’s term seem like the golden age of truth. Moderate conservatives, moderate liberals and disengaged independents won't know what to believe.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves. Then they’ll shut down the government with the budget. For months.
While the federal government is incapacitated, there will be a huge right-wing rally in some red state with full-throated attacks on the left. The ramped up crowd will head off afterwards and destroy a bunch of businesses and homes of people they suspect as being “pedophiles”. There will be violence and killings, recorded and shared freely as conservatives celebrate, similar what happens with Kyle Rittenhouse's actions. The state’s governor and local law enforcement will make minimal effort to prevent it and results in no prosecutions, and the fed response will be slow, as usual, and ineffective despite presidential condemnation.
This inspires other big events – full on Nuremberg style rallies – all over the country with similar results. Soon there will be skirmishes in the streets of major cities. The propaganda will be out of control, with front page stories, prime time videos and millions of social media posts filled with dead children and other atrocities, real or imagined.
Then it will really hit the fan when a group of black or Latino protestors attack a group of random white people who they associate with the right-wing. This causes irrational fear among the white population, and seemingly overnight, every other white “liberal” across the country will become suspicious or outright fearful of anyone of color. Mothers will pull their children from schools, or insist on “temporary” segregation for their child’s safety. Who knows what those children of color might do. The violence ramps up as POC communities are targeted, with the justification of “proactive self-defense” Law enforcement does nothing beyond platitudes and Uvalde like responses to shootings. They may even be at the forefront of the effort.
Fast forward and the 2024 election is fucking chaos. The entire right-wing will now accept nothing less than a win in literally every race, and it will be a presidential landslide anyways, because the Republicans are “pro law enforcement”, which, by this time means enforcement targeting mostly people of color and other “potentially dangerous leftists”. Americans have shown the memory of a goldfish and are easily scared. With violence spreading across the country, they’ll react by voting conservative, similar to after 9/11.
Then the right will have full control of all branches of government and start to pass all the laws they want. In addition to their current agenda, they will pass laws which essentially allows legalized vigilantism and an Amendment which cancels presidential term limits and other restrictions. Trump is pardoned.
California and other blue states respond, but the authoritarians in charge this time aren’t as stupid as Trump, learned the lessons he taught about the fragility of our laws, and use the power of the federal government to cripple the left through various voting restrictions intended to remove Democrats. It will all be “legal” and “constitutional” according to the right-wing SCOTUS. Eventually, the Democratic party will be officially declared an illegal organization because of its support for immoral lifestyles. The more the people rebel, the harder the states and feds crack down.
Then, it’s all a matter of rounding up the remaining resistance and the country becomes a de facto authoritarian regime. That’s when politicide turns into policide.
This is all a very probable future. We'll know it's starting with that first assassination. Look for it.
Whenever I read this trash I wonder who is pushing the narrative. Is this writer even an American? What does he have to gain by fomenting a narrative that Americans want to go to war? Who's in his back pocket?
Americans need to wisen the fuck up that so much of this "America divisive, we disagree so much, civil war coming" is manufactured. Especially in the age of GPT-3 where it can be as simple as telling an AI bot to "make an article that Americans are divided" and then spreading it on various social channels.
Even HN falls for this shit without any sort of discernment. Even if this article is genuine, ask yourself what benefit does it bring you or America to believe that we are more divided and want to go to war? Absolutely none. Time to start pushing back:
Take off your tinfoil hat, Science is one of the most respected academic journals in the world, and it is a US-based publication (its twin is the British journal Nature, together they form the pinnacle of academic achievement). This specific article is about a preprint, not a Science publication yet, but do be aware that the organization behind that website has a lot of reputation to lose if they were to engage in the weird sort of propaganda that you are alleging.
As an American citizen who listens to talk radio on roadtrips, I've thought that we were headed towards a civil war as early as Obama's presidency. I largely kept that prediction to myself, but it turns out that a lot of Americans feel that way or even want it to happen. My prediction was largely based on the language that radio hosts and call-ins were using to describe their elected leadership and their fellow citizens. It's gotten worse. Elected politicians are openly talking about civil war. Candidates are talking about hunting their opposition. If you think this narrative is being "pushed" you need to expand your sources of information.
See that's an important thing people don't realize about a new civil war.
In the civil war you had various clearly defined government apparatuses that chose to withdraw themselves from the union to form a new nation state. This time however it isn't a certain group of geographic area it is divided along urban vs rural lines. If a "civil war" were to come again it is much more likely that we'll see something more along the line of the "The Troubles" that happened in Northern Ireland than anything approximating what happened in the 1860s.
I hate to "be that guy" but this ends up being a both sides issue. There was a notice sent around to some churches after the RvW appeal to be vigilant since they had received some info on people possibly acting violently towards churches since they blamed them for it. (Edit to add: Please see https://janesrevenge.noblogs.org/2022/06/26/janes-revenge-ni... -- these are pointedly anti-fascists, the opposite of the right. So this is a both sides issue.)
Americans just don't seem to want to get along and understand on any side of the aisle. I can't talk politics to my family since they're all charged on their views and if I differ we just argue.
more than half of americans are unfit for a bar fight let alone a war. I hate to say it but these kinds of surveys are pretty weak. I recall a friend who's a history buff telling me something along the lines of non-professional soldiers often refuse to shoot their firearms, or intentionally miss, because people often don't truly want to kill. A quick google suggests some credibility to this claim[1].
I always try to remember that survey science simply tells us what people say on surveys, not what is actually the truth.
Consider a scenario where the government is increasingly turned into a mexican standoff between completely entrenched branches of government. Supreme court is completely doing its own thing, the president starts abusing emergency powers to circumvent a ceaselessly filibustering congress and senate. Nothing gets done, and the country starts suffering from neglect and mismanagement.
It wouldn't be unheard of for a military coup to occur in such circumstances, in fact, it's a rough parallel to Julius Caesar's coup d'etat, which resulted in a civil war because some people didn't like the idea of having Caesar as a dictator and wanted to remain a republic, even if it was incredibly corrupt and dysfunctional.
Whether that is realistic today in the united states is another thing.
I don't think most civil wars involve a high percentage of the population as combatants. Victims, maybe, but not combatants. So I don't think it's necessary that anywhere near half the population engage in fighting, for us to have one.
One of the biggest problems is that most current gun violence doesn't necessarily represent any sort of targeted pattern (i.e. shooting up a political convention or party headquarters). It's malls and schools because that's such an easy way to create shock and awe.
If we do wind up in some sort of civil conflict, I imagine it will look a lot like Ireland from the 60's to the 90's, which was by no means a good time.[0]
Yeah it's really hard to imagine a full blown civil war just because of what the battlelines would be in a right-left split in the country.
I've heard people jokingly say, "One side collects guns and the other collects mental disorders."
That's obviously an unfair shot but there's some truth to it.
Left leaning areas tend to be centered around city centers where right leaning areas tend to be rural and control things like shipping and food production.
The police and the military all have a noticeable conservative bend at least at the lower levels.
This wouldn't be a north vs south situation where each side would be roughly equally matched.
In a true right vs left civil war, at least as the politics line up right now, the right faction would win by simply isolating and choking off the cities.
One of my very close friends is a retired Army Special Forces (Green Berets) veteran with a total of 11 combat tours. He's seen (read that as you will) a couple of actual civil wars.
He was once at a very right-leaning event and someone suggested we need a civil war. He's very right leaning himself but he immediately shut them down essentially saying they have no idea what they're wishing for or even talking about. Needless to say everyone there was well aware of his experience and credentials so that immediately closed the discussion. I don't know that it changed any minds but they at least shut up about it...
Whether this data is accurate or not, the fact that anyone is suggesting or frankly even mentioning a civil war in the US is so flippant, macabre, and ignorant it makes you question whether such a person lives in reality. Anything approaching an actual civil war in the US would be an absolute bloodbath.
If a civil war happens, the blame will be on (1) social media and (2) politicians using topics such as abortion and guns to divide people in order to get votes. But politicians leveraging divisive topics to get votes is not new. What is new is social media. In the old days news was filtered, vetted and verified by reputable news services before being distributed. Now because of social media everyone is a publisher, and lies and conspiracy theories spread before truth has a chance to get its pants on. The events of Jan 6 shows what can happen if a large percentage of the citizenry believes the lies. If this continues unchecked a civil war is not outside the realms of possibility.
Not convinced at all that civil war is likely to happen. But then again, I probably would've said the same about Russia invading Ukraine at the start of the year.
Part of me thinks this is the result of countless foreign adverserial brainworms slowly trying to push Americans over the edge.
Do you have plans if civil war were to break out?
The dark part of me thinks it would be interesting to see how a modern civil war would play out in the US. My good side just thinks it'll be a waste of human life which is unlikely to meaningfully affect the ultrarich and powerful.
I'm reminded of that Seinfeld episode where George tries to break up with his girlfriend and she says no. What if the other half of Americans just said: no, we're not going to civil war. It's not necessary, stop LARPing. Stop and think about what you're getting us into.
9% of Americans say they believe werewolves exist, and 13% are not sure. Numbers are about the same for vampires too. 20% of Americans say they've actually met a ghost.
I don't listen to any news or watch TV and I don't use social media. Now that I don't consume any of it, I don't feel any of the fear or anger that the media talks about. I can't remember when I was last at peace as much as I am now. If everyone else would unplug from the hate-tainment machines they'd probably calm down too.
Well, presidential systems like the US has mostly don't remain democratic for that long, we were lucky to have the spoils system moderating ideological conflict for most of our history and a period of unusually low polarization in the time since it ended. We've been seeing round of constitutional hardball like regular use of filibusters on every bill by the opposition that would have been unthinkable in 2000. But on the other hand we don't have senators seriously trying to kill each other on the senate floor like we did before the actual Civil War so as pessimistic as I am I'd be very surprised if things got as far as a civil war within the next decade. I wouldn't rule out a serious constitutional crisis though.
EDIT: I'd highly recommend How Democracies Die, The Revolt of the Public, and Why We're Polarized for understanding the current circumstances.
Puh-leaze. Have you seen TickTok? Half of my fellow American's can't answer what the capital of the US is, what two countries border us, and how many stars there are on the flag. I wish I was kidding.
We've raised and trained the next generation to feel very strongly about many things, understand very little and believe they can define what "truth" is instead of discovering it.
This is a serious topic of discussion in our family. I personally think that the USA will collapse within the next 10 years. Specifically, I worry that the rumblings that the Independent Legislator Theory will be used to hand the next election to the right are true and that it's a viable strategy. And that this will lead to an Brexit-type situation where states vote to leave and the Federal government is happy to let (some of) them in order to solidify one-party control of the country.
Waitbutwhy has a great series about some possible explanation for the division of USA (and, probably, the version of the same situation that exists in other "flawed" western democraties.)
After many insightful chapters laying out the depressing state of the situation, Tim Urban was a on the brink of publishing the articles where he was going to suggest ways things could, maybe, be improved
And I was foolish enough to actually _expect_ some great idea, some "out of the box" light bulb, some glimmer of hope.
Instead, Tim, apparently, decided to never publish the end of the series, and instead package the first few chapters as a bone fide book. Which is all good for him, I suppose Patreon and speaking gigs can only go so far when trying to make rent.
It's all on me for having unrealistic hope in the self professed king of procrastinators.
But maybe we should be jerks and blame the coming Second Civil War on him (for not having blogged the solution sooner ?)
Still, Tim, if you're wasting your time on HN, please publish _something_.
(Also, is there a support group somewhere for people waiting for Tim Urban to publish something ? Asking for a friend.)
Would love to see what percentage of Americans would be willing to fight in a civil war. My guess is it's a whole lot lower. 3 way civil war between left extremists vs right extremists vs the federal government?
I would be interested in seeing of who would be willing to fight in a civil war how many of them are physically able to fight in a war.
Also, how many are capable of organizing a civil war. How many are willing to take orders that would send them off to die for the cause. How many are willing to take orders at all.
Final test would be how many people are willing to just sit outside in August heat for an hour with no internet.
I think there will be a civil war. But I think it will be more of a "cold" civil war with flashes of loosely coordinated and unsanctioned mob violence.
Edit: Dreher has an excellent book called "Live not by Lies", that explains a theory of soft totalitarianism. Combined with the devestating power of weapons, the reluctance to use them, the powerful surveillance state, and the strong desire to live in comfort means that we might not see a conventional civil war.
As an example: gun owners largely fear getting raided in the night and a violent standoff like Ruby Ridge. I suspect much more likely, they will get a call from CPS notifying their children are being held until investigators can confirm the reports of firearms in the house -- or perhaps credit cards and finances being shut down. Why go for a risky confrontation when you can bring someone to their knees with a button push?
If there is a cold civil war, I expect it will be waged asymmetrically instead of conventionally.
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|3 years ago|reply
> Participants: Cross-sectional nationwide survey conducted May 13 to June 2, 2022; participants were adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel.
8,620 respondents, but I don't see how they were recruited or how potential bias was accounted for.
Given how weird some of the internet surveys have been in the past year, I don't take singular polls all that seriously. These polls seem to end up extremely skewed toward subjects who overestimate small probabilities.
For a reality check, consider that 1/8th of respondents said they would be willing to commit political violence themselves and 7.1% of respondents said they'd be willing to kill someone over politics.
> 12.2% were willing to commit political violence themselves ″to threaten or intimidate a person,″ 10.4% ″to injure a person,″ and 7.1% ″to kill a person.″
And to cap it off, 4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon:
> and 4.0% thought it at least somewhat likely that ″I will shoot someone with a gun.″
Yeah, I don't think so. This feels like a survey of people who consume too much news and social media and have become increasingly disconnected from the reality on the ground.
[+] [-] pmyteh|3 years ago|reply
That said, I don't think the results are crazy, on their face (though I don't myself expect a civil war). There are a number of groups openly proposing political violence, increased partisan polarisation, and a breakdown in the normal political processes (Congress has been essentially non-functional for a while, the Supreme Court have taken a decidedly activist turn, state legislatures are actively discussing subverting the next Presidential election, and trust in politicians of all parties is at historical lows). It's not clear how these will be resolved, and a further increase in political violence is certainly a possibility. Will that amount to civil war? Not close, in my view, but we live in unusual political times.
[+] [-] hinkley|3 years ago|reply
Nearly all the places that talk about secession are the same states that generate less federal tax revenue than they spend. Which is both why it would be a terrible idea, and why people get upset about it. Few people who know they are getting a handout enjoy having everybody else know it, and it makes them bristly.
[+] [-] nequo|3 years ago|reply
This is from the PDF listed on the page that you linked:
[+] [-] Enginerrrd|3 years ago|reply
It's one thing to be willing to fight in a civil war, which involves all of the things you just mentioned, and another thing entirely to want to instigate those things.
[+] [-] jfzoid|3 years ago|reply
Plenty of people are willing to say "I am willing to commit violence" on social media. My gut feeling is that if 4% say they will shoot someone, < 0.4% will actually do it.
[+] [-] antonymy|3 years ago|reply
>Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was also not involved in the study, agrees. But she suspects the survey responses overrepresent the number of Americans who would be willing to turn to violence because, she says, surveys tend to overstate what people actually think. “The numbers always tend to be shocking, but in essence, are probably not true.”
Hardly sensational to lead with "all this is probably BS" but that probably wouldn't get as many clicks. For sure the alarmist title got me to read it, only to wind up feeling I wasted my time.
[+] [-] Imnimo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random-human|3 years ago|reply
This says it all. The talk is there, social media (or any one who will listen) seems to be a popular public journal for people to vent feelings and use it as therapy. I even have friends that txt their anxiety about the political situation and when it reaches peek anxiety, the words civil war get thrown in there. But, it's clearly just a way to release the temporary anxiety they are feeling after having spent too much time consuming click-bait media - most people are too comfortable and self-serving in their lives to engage in long term life and death violence.
People here really did not do well, mentally or physically, when they were told they could not gather at bars or restaurants for months. And they really didnt like the disruptions to the sports seasons. The majority are not the extremist (be its very definition) that would actually be willing to give up football on Sunday to cosplay civil war 2.0.
Also, the logistics are not there - not that I can see anyway. Many people would defend their home and cities, but wont be motivated to march thousands of miles into unfamiliar neighborhoods to get shot at by g'ma and a 8 y/o. I think people, even other Americans, underestimate the actual patriotism of people in this country.
[+] [-] humanistbot|3 years ago|reply
Virtually no political polling is. I know of no political polling agency/company that submits their polls to peer-reviewed journals.
[+] [-] t0bia_s|3 years ago|reply
If creating parallel world is new normal for journalists then loosing trust of public in news is natural.
I hope that manipulation and government propaganda pushed in news will be naturally eliminated. The question is, how far they will go to keep our attention.
[+] [-] reaperducer|3 years ago|reply
While you're right that polling that has traditionally been spot-on, or very close in the past has occasionally been way off in the last five to ten years.
However, isn't Ipsos a fairly well-respected organization in its field? The kind with enough experience and resources to account for any kind of biases?
I'd like to see another big polling organization as the same questions and see if the results are the same.
4% of respondents were pretty sure they were going to kill someone soon
So, if there's a 4% margin of error, it's could be either 8%, or 0%.
[+] [-] slowhand09|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] findalex|3 years ago|reply
God help us. It's almost impressive how biased this sample is. I'm dying to know what else the "Ipsos KnowledgePanel" thinks. Will report back with any eye rollers.
[+] [-] tmaly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmadsen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
[+] [-] lordleft|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russellbeattie|3 years ago|reply
Having just read about the Spanish Civil War, I can see how this will potentially play out.
It will begin with a high profile assassination, then the extreme right will use the protests that will follow as justification for escalating violence, similar to the BLM protests. More violence. Maybe another high profile killing (on either side). Tit-for-tat murders begin, as they have in various government collapses around the world, especially in the 20th century.
The extreme left will undoubtedly respond in various ways beyond protests as tensions grow and the right will use whatever happens as propaganda to enrage their already agitated base. Whacko conspiracy theories and disinformation will make Trump’s term seem like the golden age of truth. Moderate conservatives, moderate liberals and disengaged independents won't know what to believe.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the conservatives who gain control in 2022 will grind the federal government to a halt with hearings and procedural moves. Then they’ll shut down the government with the budget. For months.
While the federal government is incapacitated, there will be a huge right-wing rally in some red state with full-throated attacks on the left. The ramped up crowd will head off afterwards and destroy a bunch of businesses and homes of people they suspect as being “pedophiles”. There will be violence and killings, recorded and shared freely as conservatives celebrate, similar what happens with Kyle Rittenhouse's actions. The state’s governor and local law enforcement will make minimal effort to prevent it and results in no prosecutions, and the fed response will be slow, as usual, and ineffective despite presidential condemnation.
This inspires other big events – full on Nuremberg style rallies – all over the country with similar results. Soon there will be skirmishes in the streets of major cities. The propaganda will be out of control, with front page stories, prime time videos and millions of social media posts filled with dead children and other atrocities, real or imagined.
Then it will really hit the fan when a group of black or Latino protestors attack a group of random white people who they associate with the right-wing. This causes irrational fear among the white population, and seemingly overnight, every other white “liberal” across the country will become suspicious or outright fearful of anyone of color. Mothers will pull their children from schools, or insist on “temporary” segregation for their child’s safety. Who knows what those children of color might do. The violence ramps up as POC communities are targeted, with the justification of “proactive self-defense” Law enforcement does nothing beyond platitudes and Uvalde like responses to shootings. They may even be at the forefront of the effort.
Fast forward and the 2024 election is fucking chaos. The entire right-wing will now accept nothing less than a win in literally every race, and it will be a presidential landslide anyways, because the Republicans are “pro law enforcement”, which, by this time means enforcement targeting mostly people of color and other “potentially dangerous leftists”. Americans have shown the memory of a goldfish and are easily scared. With violence spreading across the country, they’ll react by voting conservative, similar to after 9/11.
Then the right will have full control of all branches of government and start to pass all the laws they want. In addition to their current agenda, they will pass laws which essentially allows legalized vigilantism and an Amendment which cancels presidential term limits and other restrictions. Trump is pardoned.
California and other blue states respond, but the authoritarians in charge this time aren’t as stupid as Trump, learned the lessons he taught about the fragility of our laws, and use the power of the federal government to cripple the left through various voting restrictions intended to remove Democrats. It will all be “legal” and “constitutional” according to the right-wing SCOTUS. Eventually, the Democratic party will be officially declared an illegal organization because of its support for immoral lifestyles. The more the people rebel, the harder the states and feds crack down.
Then, it’s all a matter of rounding up the remaining resistance and the country becomes a de facto authoritarian regime. That’s when politicide turns into policide.
This is all a very probable future. We'll know it's starting with that first assassination. Look for it.
[+] [-] dQw4w9WgXcQ|3 years ago|reply
Americans need to wisen the fuck up that so much of this "America divisive, we disagree so much, civil war coming" is manufactured. Especially in the age of GPT-3 where it can be as simple as telling an AI bot to "make an article that Americans are divided" and then spreading it on various social channels.
Even HN falls for this shit without any sort of discernment. Even if this article is genuine, ask yourself what benefit does it bring you or America to believe that we are more divided and want to go to war? Absolutely none. Time to start pushing back:
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/29/america-pa...
[2] https://thecorrespondent.com/197/more-divided-than-ever-the-...
[+] [-] t_mann|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klyrs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjstankus|3 years ago|reply
More frequent and extreme episodes of violent civil unrest? Yes. I think it's going to get worse.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-...
[+] [-] buscoquadnary|3 years ago|reply
In the civil war you had various clearly defined government apparatuses that chose to withdraw themselves from the union to form a new nation state. This time however it isn't a certain group of geographic area it is divided along urban vs rural lines. If a "civil war" were to come again it is much more likely that we'll see something more along the line of the "The Troubles" that happened in Northern Ireland than anything approximating what happened in the 1860s.
[+] [-] bsagdiyev|3 years ago|reply
Americans just don't seem to want to get along and understand on any side of the aisle. I can't talk politics to my family since they're all charged on their views and if I differ we just argue.
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maerF0x0|3 years ago|reply
I always try to remember that survey science simply tells us what people say on surveys, not what is actually the truth.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/killing-does-not-com...
[+] [-] marginalia_nu|3 years ago|reply
Consider a scenario where the government is increasingly turned into a mexican standoff between completely entrenched branches of government. Supreme court is completely doing its own thing, the president starts abusing emergency powers to circumvent a ceaselessly filibustering congress and senate. Nothing gets done, and the country starts suffering from neglect and mismanagement.
It wouldn't be unheard of for a military coup to occur in such circumstances, in fact, it's a rough parallel to Julius Caesar's coup d'etat, which resulted in a civil war because some people didn't like the idea of having Caesar as a dictator and wanted to remain a republic, even if it was incredibly corrupt and dysfunctional.
Whether that is realistic today in the united states is another thing.
[+] [-] corrral|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thr0wawayf00|3 years ago|reply
If we do wind up in some sort of civil conflict, I imagine it will look a lot like Ireland from the 60's to the 90's, which was by no means a good time.[0]
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
[+] [-] CSMastermind|3 years ago|reply
I've heard people jokingly say, "One side collects guns and the other collects mental disorders."
That's obviously an unfair shot but there's some truth to it.
Left leaning areas tend to be centered around city centers where right leaning areas tend to be rural and control things like shipping and food production.
The police and the military all have a noticeable conservative bend at least at the lower levels.
This wouldn't be a north vs south situation where each side would be roughly equally matched.
In a true right vs left civil war, at least as the politics line up right now, the right faction would win by simply isolating and choking off the cities.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kkielhofner|3 years ago|reply
He was once at a very right-leaning event and someone suggested we need a civil war. He's very right leaning himself but he immediately shut them down essentially saying they have no idea what they're wishing for or even talking about. Needless to say everyone there was well aware of his experience and credentials so that immediately closed the discussion. I don't know that it changed any minds but they at least shut up about it...
Whether this data is accurate or not, the fact that anyone is suggesting or frankly even mentioning a civil war in the US is so flippant, macabre, and ignorant it makes you question whether such a person lives in reality. Anything approaching an actual civil war in the US would be an absolute bloodbath.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] petilon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|3 years ago|reply
Part of me thinks this is the result of countless foreign adverserial brainworms slowly trying to push Americans over the edge.
Do you have plans if civil war were to break out?
The dark part of me thinks it would be interesting to see how a modern civil war would play out in the US. My good side just thinks it'll be a waste of human life which is unlikely to meaningfully affect the ultrarich and powerful.
I'm reminded of that Seinfeld episode where George tries to break up with his girlfriend and she says no. What if the other half of Americans just said: no, we're not going to civil war. It's not necessary, stop LARPing. Stop and think about what you're getting us into.
[+] [-] NovemberWhiskey|3 years ago|reply
https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-repor...
28% of Americans say they believe that seeing a shooting star brings good luck.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jmh49rcs2g/toplines_Luck_and_Sup...
24% of American millennials say they have an actual plan for the zombie apocalypse.
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/d7rutytxs2/Zombie-Plans-Data.pdf
The message to take away from this, I hope, is that people who answer these surveys like to troll.
[+] [-] jonnycomputer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|3 years ago|reply
EDIT: I'd highly recommend How Democracies Die, The Revolt of the Public, and Why We're Polarized for understanding the current circumstances.
[+] [-] frellus|3 years ago|reply
We've raised and trained the next generation to feel very strongly about many things, understand very little and believe they can define what "truth" is instead of discovering it.
[+] [-] elil17|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhallenworld|3 years ago|reply
https://man.fas.org/dod-101/fac/conus.htm
Also, what would Trump's tomb look like (assuming he's leading one side and wins). For example:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/24/franco...
[+] [-] mywittyname|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] czbond|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phtrivier|3 years ago|reply
After many insightful chapters laying out the depressing state of the situation, Tim Urban was a on the brink of publishing the articles where he was going to suggest ways things could, maybe, be improved
And I was foolish enough to actually _expect_ some great idea, some "out of the box" light bulb, some glimmer of hope.
Instead, Tim, apparently, decided to never publish the end of the series, and instead package the first few chapters as a bone fide book. Which is all good for him, I suppose Patreon and speaking gigs can only go so far when trying to make rent.
It's all on me for having unrealistic hope in the self professed king of procrastinators.
But maybe we should be jerks and blame the coming Second Civil War on him (for not having blogged the solution sooner ?)
Still, Tim, if you're wasting your time on HN, please publish _something_.
(Also, is there a support group somewhere for people waiting for Tim Urban to publish something ? Asking for a friend.)
[+] [-] rngname22|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Verdex|3 years ago|reply
Also, how many are capable of organizing a civil war. How many are willing to take orders that would send them off to die for the cause. How many are willing to take orders at all.
Final test would be how many people are willing to just sit outside in August heat for an hour with no internet.
[+] [-] bjt2n3904|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Dreher has an excellent book called "Live not by Lies", that explains a theory of soft totalitarianism. Combined with the devestating power of weapons, the reluctance to use them, the powerful surveillance state, and the strong desire to live in comfort means that we might not see a conventional civil war.
As an example: gun owners largely fear getting raided in the night and a violent standoff like Ruby Ridge. I suspect much more likely, they will get a call from CPS notifying their children are being held until investigators can confirm the reports of firearms in the house -- or perhaps credit cards and finances being shut down. Why go for a risky confrontation when you can bring someone to their knees with a button push?
If there is a cold civil war, I expect it will be waged asymmetrically instead of conventionally.