Trump Supporters’ Thirst For Violence Overstated By Media
U.S. — As Republican candidate Donald Trump’s talk of a “rigged system” galvanizes his supporters to action, it also reveals a crucial truth about the stoic, almost gentle nature that predominates among them.
While critics fear that his heated rhetoric will inspire his followers to violence in the increasingly likely event that they do not get the result they desire on election day, our interviews with Trump supporters across the fifty states paints a different picture: not all who follow the real estate magnate turned reality TV star share a taste for violence.
“I’m not saying there will be an armed insurrection,” said Steve Brilcomb, a 54-year-old independent contractor and self-described patriot who spoke to us while arranging stacks of ammunition behind sandbags in front of the only door into a bunker in the backyard of his house in Florida’s Ompalompa County, a traditional Republican bastion that has rallied strongly behind Trump. “You won’t catch me saying that. No, sir.”
Matthew Bohmer, a 37-year-old alt-right social media enthusiast speaking to us over Skype from what he described as his basement lair somewhere in Indiana, echoed those sentiments when we asked him about the possibility of bloodshed and terrorism “You didn’t hear about it from me. You got that? You didn’t hear about it from me.”
A majority of those who granted us interviews had similar things to say, by a margin of 53% respondents who would not speak of open warfare to a mere 47% who were willing to do so.
That only a minority of Trump supporters would be willing to make war on their neighbors and fellow citizens is a far cry from the unfairly-promulgated broad stereotype of the Trump camp as bloodthirsty zealots. Further, for any violence to break out, these more militant members of Team Trump would have to be unable to look around on election day, realize that they are in fact in the minority, and then acquiesce to the will of the majority.
When we asked Larry Palchowski, an 73-year-old Arizona retiree hanging out at a shooting range if he had any intention of offering armed resistance to an unfavorable election, he simply adjusted his aim down the sight of his rifle, fired a round into a computer printout of Hillary Clinton’s head, and said, “The Constitution is the only thing that matters. We must be prepared to defend it at all costs.”
The Constitution, the foundational document of the United States and the basis of its entire body of law, prescribes a peaceful transfer of power following a presidential election. The one unifying trait of all Trump supporters interviewed by The Daily Spigot is that 100% of them were quite insistent on the importance of the Constitution and their willingness to do anything to protect it, including, we must conclude, accepting an election result that is not to their taste.
So where did this notion — that Trump supporters are preparing to violently overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States if they are not allowed to install the candidate of their choice — arise?
It’s hard to say. One thing is certain: unfair as we have revealed this stereotype to be, it’s certainly pervasive. Many of the Trump supporters we spoke to were quite sure that other Trump supporters would take to the streets and riot, even if they themselves would not. As Trump supporters do not trust the biased mainstream media, something must have caused this belief to rise up from within their ranks.
One possibility is that it may simply be a matter of confusion caused by poor wording and bad optics.
Former Tea Party congressperson Joe Walsh tweeted yesterday, “if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket,” words which were somehow construed by a majority of those reading them as a revolutionary call to arms.
When The Daily Spigot reached out to Walsh for clarification, he assured us that he had in fact been referring to perfectly legal non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience, and that no one could prove otherwise because it was ridiculous to think anyone would take the government on with an actual musket, (an obsolete firearm in use at the time of the American Revolution.)
He then winked broadly, and said, “So, tell your readers that if any of them have ‘muskets’ and they don’t want Clinton to come for their ‘muskets’ they should take up their ‘muskets’ and do something about it on November 9th. I’m talking peaceful demonstrations. Like the founding fathers did during the revolution.”
He then winked again, and asked us to please make sure we include the quotation marks around “muskets” when reproducing his speech.
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