'Set things straight': Chilling poll shows how far Republicans are willing to go

Regular readers know that I have a profound disdain for political, horse race polling. It’s inaccurate, dangerous and is released with so many caveats these days, it’s a wonder anybody would look at them and take them seriously.

That lecture aside, I came across a poll this weekend, and despite myself had a look.

It buckled my knees.

Even if this poll is only in the general vicinity of being correct, it is one of the most shocking things I have ever come across.

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This poll, released by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, containssome eye-popping numbers which go way past answering the simple question of “who are you going to vote for?” to “What are you prepared to do to make sure your candidate wins?”

The findings in this chilling poll vividly illustrate just how little Republicans really care about law and order in this country — as if that should still be a serious debate after January 6, 2021 — and just how loudly the time bomb is ticking as we approach Election Day on November 5.

I am shocked the findings in this poll have gotten so little attention in the press, so here goes …

From the NPR news story addressing the poll:

Six in 10 Republicans falsely maintain that Joe Biden did not win the election in 2020.

These approximate numbers have been reported a lot and in many different polls. Enough so, that they should be completely believed. A majority of Republican voters don’t believe Biden won the election. But as disgusting and disheartening as these numbers are, it turns out they are only a bit player in this horror show, because …

A majority of Republicans believe the country needs a leader to break some rules to get it back on track, and some 3 in 10 Republicans go so far as to say Americans may have to resort to violence in order to set things straight.

Go ahead, read that one again, and slowly ...

Now consider how many people we are talking about here.

If 3 and 10 Republicans believe Americans may have to resort to violence “to set things straight” we are talking about roughly 20 million Americans who feel this way. And even if this poll’s plus/minus accuracy rate is absolutely abysmal, would any of you feel better if “only” 15 million Republicans feel this way? How about ten million? Five million????

Hell, it’s chilling that 1,000 people actually think this is a prudent course. It takes just one nut with a gun to terrorize an entire town, for Christ’s sake.

If you are asking how I arrived at my calculations, I did it this way: Trump got slightly more than 74,000,000 votes in 2020. Thirty percent of that number would roughly work out to 20+ million.

Twenty million-plus people who think we need violence “to set things straight ...”

And what does “set things straight” even mean? I’ll let you decide that, but besides sounding thuggish, in my mind we are talking about returning to a time when white men ran every single bit of everything in this country, and by extreme force.

How many of these Republicans who see violence as a way “to set things straight” are cops? How many of these Republicans who see violence as a way “to set things straight” are in our military? How many of these Republicans who see violence as a way “to set things straight” are in our Congress? How many of these Republicans who see violence as a way “to set things straight” are moms and dads?

We know for an ironclad fact the Republican nominee for president feels this way. He sees January 6 as a reason for celebration, not utter shame. He calls it a “beautiful day” and those who attacked us “hostages.” He told us, “he loves them.”

Is there even one of you, besides perhaps Attorney General Merrick Garland, who does not think that Trump, win or lose (and he damn well better lose) will not hesitate to try to mobilize this sick, anti-American group of people to burn it all down?

Have we become so gaslit and desensitized by the past eight years that we are willing to brush away terror like this as if it were just some pesky gnat buzzing around our heads?

Do we still somehow think we are immune from the lawlessness and violence that has destroyed other countries right in front of our eyes?

Tens of millions of Americans, many of whom have stockpiled a significant portion of the 450 million guns in this country, believe violence is a way “to set things straight” if things don’t work out for them in November.

God help us.

If all this scares the hell out of you, GOOD.

You are aware, woke, still love and worry for your country despite all her warts, and know that mobilizing our vote and sounding the alarms are truly the only things that will save us.

That said, we all deserve to know what our nation’s top law enforcement and elected officials think about this, and just what in the hell they plan to do to keep us safe.

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D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.