From pbs last year, sociologists say few want violence but think the other side does...
Still, experts warned against presuming that too many Americans are so radicalized that they might engage in politically motivated violence.
Joe Mernyk, a doctoral student in Stanford University’s Polarization and Social Change Lab, surveyed Democrats and Republicans about their support for political violence and found it to be very low. But perceptions of those in the other party provided a different picture: People in each party believed members of the other had high support for violence.
When participants were told that, in fact, support for violence was low on the other side, their own support for violence dropped even lower, Mernyk said,
Mernyk stressed the importance of “making sure people know these people, like the guy in Utah, are not representative of the Republican Party or the party’s attitudes.”