There Might (Need to) Be Blood

A new report from PRRI shows more people willing to resort to political violence

Politics in the United States has always been a bloodsport.

Even with a system in place for the peaceful transfer of power through voting, violence to secure political ends has been part of U.S. history for centuries.

The nation was born in blood.

First the blood of indigenous people who fought hard for their homeland against colonizing powers. And then the nation was birthed in blood through the Revolutionary War.

The United States’ bloodiest war to date, the Civil War, remains a massive act of political violence on the part of the Confederates.

Just a month after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president in November 1860, white politicians in South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. They were followed by Mississippi in January 1861 and then in quick succession by the rest of the Southern states that would soon form the Confederate States of America (CSA).

By April 1861, the war was on. 

SHAY HORSE/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

But most people around the world and right here at home look at the United States and believe that political violence is rare and morally repulsive. But according to a new survey, more and more people think we may have to use political violence to solve our problems.

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