One thing that has been concerning lately is the way a lot of people have been open to political violence, particularly from the Left. They've engaged in plenty of it, over the last handful of years, and there was little evidence that they intended the second Trump administration to be any different.
Well, if that were the case, they might have started off strong, but now things have declined.
Namely, support for it has gone down according to a recent study.
Despite an increasingly volatile and fraught political climate in the United States, researchers have found a “broad decrease” in support for political violence from mid-2025 to mid-2026.
The analysis, published earlier this month by the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California Davis, offers an important counterpoint to perceptions that political violence is becoming accepted among Americans.
“These findings are clear,” wrote Dr. Garen Wintemute, the director of the Centers for Violence Prevention and an emergency medicine physician, in a news release for the analysis.
“Entrapment in a spiral of escalating political violence is not inevitable in the United States. Those who promote political violence should recognize that they do not have the public’s support and that promoting violence may exact a political cost,” Wintemute added.
Support remained stronger on the political right than on the political left, according to the analysis.
That's probably not surprising that the Left is dropping political violence support so fast as opposed to the Right, but it's also not quite what's presented here. Quite the contrary, because I don't think there's the support for it among the Right that is being claimed.
For example, look at the questions being asked.
Prevalences of strong or very strong agreement with any of 3 statements about conditions in the US creating a potential need for political violence did not exceed 9% in 2026 (Table 1). There were small decreases in agreement from 2025 to 2026 with all 3 statements, but only the decrease for “Our American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it” was significant (change -0.053, 95% CI -0.077, -0.030) (Table 1). There was a small but significant increase in agreement that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States” (change 0.044, 95% CI 0.023, 0.064), but essentially no change forthe statement that “United States needs a civil war to set things right” (change 0.006, 95% CI -0.011, 0.024) (Table 1).
Changes from 2025 to 2026 differed by political party and MAGA movement affiliations (Figure 1). MAGA Republicans, for example, agreed more strongly in 2026 than in 2025 with all 3 statements of potential need for violence (1 of 3 changes was significant) and with an expectation of and need for civil war (the increase in expectation was significant). Among strong Democrats,agreement with all 5 statements decreased, significantly so for 2 of 3 regarding a potential need for violence (Figure 1).
There's a big difference between thinking a civil war is inevitable and actually supporting it or even being resigned to the lack of political solutions that might necessitate such a conflict.
Frankly, I pray we never see such a thing, because it will be beyond ugly.
As for the Left backing away from the political violence thing, my lack of surprise about this drop is mostly due to the fact that people keep tangling with ICE, trying stuff they figured they could get away with, like driving toward federal agents, only to get lit up and killed for it. Suddenly, the stakes of acting violently are very different.
Kyle Rittenhouse wasn't seen as a warning, but a symptom of a failed justice system, you see. In their mind, he was a racist murderer. Hell, some of them still think he killed two black dudes, despite every round that made contact hitting a white dude with a criminal record.
They could shrug that off, but now federal agents aren't hiding under overpasses like the LAPD did last year. They're actually doing their jobs, and those who try to play badass don't get to play it for long.
Suddenly, leftist violence has stakes that they don't want to pay, and now the support for violence is dwindling because they don't want to see someone they care about get shot.
It's easy to play tough when it's easy. It's harder to actually be tough.
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