Stark Moral Difference

Conservatives allege that the political left has a violence problem and accuses the left of fostering an "assassination culture." Is there data to support this allegation aside from the fact that virtually every mass shooting and assassination in our culture is perpetrated by someone on the left?

A YouGov poll taken in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder reveals a stark moral difference between Democrats and Republicans in this country with respect to the acceptability of political violence as well as the acceptability of celebrating an opponent's death.

For instance, according to YouGov's David Montgomery the more liberal one is the more likely they are to defend feeling happy at the deaths of their political opponents:

It is true that liberal Americans are more likely than conservatives to defend feeling joy about the deaths of political opponents. 16% of liberals say this is usually or always acceptable, including 24% of those who say their ideology is very liberal and 10% who say they are liberal but not very liberal. That compares to 4% of conservatives and 7% of moderates.

Another question in the survey had to do with the acceptance of violence to further one's political aims.

The more liberal someone is the more likely they are to condone political violence. Among the very liberal, 25% say political violence can sometimes be justified and only 55% say it can't. Remarkably, 20% were either unsure or preferred not to say.

On the other hand, the more conservative someone is the less likely they are to think that political violence is ever justified. Only about 2% of very conservative adults think political violence is ever justified, and 88% say it's never acceptable.

There's a lot more on related questions and a number of helpful charts at the YouGov website (see the above link).

Meanwhile, I should mention one caveat. Some respondents to this poll may have felt that there could always be some conceivable circumstance under which violence might be justified. After all, the American revolution might be viewed as such a case. However, the questions in the YouGov poll should probably be considered in the general context of our contemporary American polity and in the specific context of the Charlie Kirk assassination.

That's doubtless the context in which the vast majority of respondents interpreted the questions and, if that's so, those on the left have a serious moral problem festering in their midst that they need to address before some lunatic decides to kill again.