US now grappling with 'worst political violence'

Poll finds 18 million justify force to restore Trump to the White House as further indictments likely

WASHINGTON — The United States is grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s, a Reuters report found, as former president Donald Trump said on Thursday that a trial on charges of him trying to overturn his 2020 election loss should happen only after the 2024 election.

US prosecutors have asked a federal judge to begin Trump's trial on Jan 2, 2024.

If US District Judge Tanya Chutkan agrees with the prosecutors' proposal, the case against the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential primary would open right before the anniversary of the Jan 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

The proposed date is also just under two weeks before the first votes are set to be cast in the Republican presidential race, with Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses scheduled for Jan 15.

Trump reacted angrily to the proposed trial date on his Truth Social platform. "Only an out of touch lunatic would ask for such a date, ONE DAY into the New Year, and maximum Election Interference with IOWA!" he wrote on Thursday night.

Reuters identified 213 cases of political violence since the Jan 6, 2021, attack by supporters of Trump on the US Capitol, quoting three academics who reviewed the cases as saying they added to growing evidence that political violence is at its worst since the 1970s.

About two-thirds of politically violent incidents documented by Reuters were assaults by lone assailants or clashes between rival groups at public events, such as demonstrations over police killings, abortion and transgender rights. The rest involved substantial property damage.

In the early 1970s, political violence was perpetrated more often by radicals on the left and focused largely on destroying government property, Rachel Kleinfeld, who studies political conflict and extremism at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was cited by the report as saying.

In contrast, much of today's political violence is aimed at people and most of the deadly outbursts tracked by Reuters have come from the right. Of the 14 fatal political attacks since the Capitol riot in which the perpetrator or suspect had a clear partisan leaning, 13 were right-wing assailants.

Meanwhile, according to a recent survey conducted by the University of Chicago, a growing number of people in the US believe in the use of force to attain political goals.

The Dangers to Democracy survey indicates that a growing number of people support the use of political violence as the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, The Guardian reported on July 25.

According to the survey conducted in late June, the number of US adults who believe the use of force is justified to restore Trump to the White House increased by roughly 6 million in the last few months to an estimated 18 million people.

Of those 18 million people, 68 percent believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and 62 percent believe the prosecutions of Trump are intended to hurt his chances in 2024. An estimated 7 percent now believe violence could be necessary to restore Trump to the presidency, up from 4.5 percent, or 12 million people, in April.

The most recent report marks the first increase in radical, violent support for Trump since April 2022, said Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor who directs the poll.