Democrats vs Republicans: Who Is Actually More Violent? - Robert Pape #1154

Chris Williamson (0:00)

People of the UK and Ireland, if you want to come and see me live, tickets are very limited for my live tour this October, but they are still available. Dublin is already sold out. However, if you're a fan of Modern Wisdom, if you love psychology, philosophy, human nature, personal development, and you want to hear stories that I definitely can't tell on the internet, then come and see me live this October. chriswilliamson.live has got all of the tickets. Dublin is completely gone, but there are limited tickets everywhere else. I'll see you soon. chriswilliamson.live. We discussed this recently under debate, but I wanted to give it a full treatment, and I think this topical feels very critical to the current conversation.

What is the number one threat to America, in your opinion?

Robert Pape (0:37)

The number one threat to America is not from a foreign government, even Iran. It's not from a fringe militia group. It's from tens of millions of Americans who support political violence.

Once you have support for political violence lodged in the mainstream of society, this changes everything.

Chris Williamson (1:04)

Is this a new era of political violence?

Robert Pape (1:06)

It's a new era. It's an era I call violent populism. Because I want to explain that we have had almost every year since the founding of our country, 250 years, some type of political violence, some type of militia group, an assassination attempt here or there. That's not what we are living through now.

This is a new paradigm. This is a different world. Now, it has happened a few times before.

I'm sure we'll talk about this in the 1920s, the 1960s. But as for almost everybody listening to this show, we are in an era of historically high political violence and historically high support for political violence that will change the election that we are about to go through in ways we may not really be prepared for.

Chris Williamson (2:09)

How unprecedented is this? Because I think back to the Vietnam War and there were protests around that. That felt like civil unrest domestically. And prior to that, there's been all manner of, I mean, there was a civil war, not even that long ago, right?

Robert Pape (2:24)

Well, the civil war, 1860, let's just remind ourselves that that is a long time ago, a hundred and...

Chris Williamson (2:32)

Talking to someone with a country that's a thousand years old, you know what I mean?

Robert Pape (2:35)

Well, okay, so maybe, maybe from your perspective...

Chris Williamson (2:37)

Talking about the Battle of Hastings.

Robert Pape (2:38)

was just the other day. But for Americans, that is a long time ago. In the 1960s, we need to recall that that was over 65 years ago. So that's a long time ago. And that means that although there will be a few of us baby boomers who were born, I'm right at the tail end of the baby boom generation. So there will be a few of us who were born. But even, I can't really recall personally the 1960s because I was just way too young. So the fact is, yes, there have been precursors and other eras of violent populism where you have a whole spate, waves of assassination attempts, waves of violent protests.

And side by side with that, large millions and tens of millions of Americans supporting political violence. But it is actually a historical anomaly in our country. It is not simply the same as it was 10 years ago, or the same as it was 15 years before that. But the big picture here is that we are in an era where we have experienced not one, not two, but three assassination attempts against Donald Trump. Two, when he was running for president, one, when he was president.

These three are just a small number of the many assassination attempts and assassinations that we have seen over the last five years. You have to recall the assassination attempt against Nancy Pelosi. Missed her, but almost killed her husband. Brett Kavanaugh, that's a US Supreme Court justice. Josh Shapiro, the arsonist burned down large parts of his house while his family was sleeping in the house, including him.

He's governor of Pennsylvania. Just literally, a year ago and two days, so we're speaking on September 12th, but on September 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk, a major political activist, a podcast host beloved by tens of millions of Americans, was assassinated while he was having one of his quite frequent debates, debating people on a college campus. So this only touches the assassination attempts, Chris. We haven't even talked about the violent protests as part of the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, where yes, most of the George Floyd protests were peaceful, but five to 7% of them were not. And when you have 28 million Americans engaged in the summer of George Floyd protesting, five to 7% is a terrifically large number. And we could go on and on, January 6, etc.