Holy s**t.

Over the course of three years, the number of Americans who say that they feel justified in using violence to achieve their political goals has gone up from 8 percent to over 33 percent. pic.twitter.com/JBg3Y83ASK

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) October 1, 2020

Being a seasoned poll watcher occasionally you see some polling that shocks and disgusts you, for example when in 2017 a poll found 53% of Britons liked pineapple on pizza but this poll from America frightens me on so many levels, in a way no other poll ever has.

33% of of Democrats and 36% of Republicans feel justified in using violence to achieve their political goals, a staggering fourfold increase in just over three years.

For a while I’ve been thinking of closing out my betting positions on the American election because I’m not sure there exists the environment for a fair and free election to take place even before your factor in the various voter suppression tactics the GOP are in engaging in. Such as Governor Abbott of Texas ‘ordered[ing] that voters can drop off their mail-in ballots at only one location per county in the lead-up to the presidential election’ or ‘Republican Operatives Jacob Wohl And Jack Burkman Charged With Felonies In Voter Suppression Scheme [in Michigan.]’ There are many other examples I could cite.

But back to this polling it isn’t hard to see the extreme people who have hijacked the Black Lives Matter campaign to pursue an undemocratic approach or those people on the right who love their second amendment displaying their weapons outside polling booths in minority heavy areas and other places to suppress Joe Biden’s vote.

If you think is hyperbole on my part then remember I still get a chill down my spine when I remember that armed protesters entered the Michigan statehouse earlier on this year.

Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today. #mileg pic.twitter.com/voOZpPYWOs

— Senator Dayna Polehanki (@SenPolehanki) April 30, 2020

Also remember that back in 2013 the Supreme Court pretty much gave the green light to reintroduce Jim Crow style voter suppression laws by the States and I’m quite happy to say America isn’t a functioning democracy, something those of us who bet on the American politics should remember.

TSE