It has long been abundantly clear that there is a strong appetite for political violence and ideological uniformity on the left. A new Young America’s Foundation poll released on Tuesday indicated that this is indeed an intergenerational problem.
Shortly after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Echelon Insights conducted a YAF survey of 1,021 registered voters ages 18-29 nationwide.
On the topic of Kirk’s murder on Sept. 10, respondents were asked which of the following two statements they agreed with more: “There is absolutely no justification for murdering someone over their viewpoints” or “Kirk’s viewpoints mean he brought this violence upon himself to an extent.”
Seventy percent of respondents answered that there was no justification for murdering a person over his views. While 90% of conservatives and 75% of moderates answered that there was no justification, 42% of self-described liberal respondents suggested that Kirk had it coming.
‘Three in ten young voters, however, say violence might be justified in some instances to shut those types of speech down.’
Young liberals’ responses to a follow-up question helped clarify that a great many just don’t want conservatives to be able to articulate their views in public.
When asked whether they believed “we are better off when strongly conservative viewpoints are able to be voiced and shared in the public square,” 53% of liberals said conservative viewpoints should be “shut down or kept out of the public square.”
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Only 49% of all respondents supported expressions of conservative viewpoints in public. The statement lacked majority support in part because only 75% of conservatives indicated that society was better off when their viewpoints were not shut down in public.
Although young liberals majoritively favor censorship, YAF noted that a significant percentage of all respondents are far from absolute in their support for free speech.
“Fewer than half of young voters think that negative statements toward racial or ethnic groups or celebrating acts of violence should be protected as free speech — 42% and 48% respectively — and roughly 60% believe such expression should be reportable to employers,” noted YAF spokesman Spencer Brown. “Three in ten young voters, however, say violence might be justified in some instances to shut those types of speech down.”
Other polls in recent months and years have similarly highlighted the violent and censorious mentality that possesses so many on the left.
A Marist Poll conducted in late September found that 10% of Democrats strongly agreed and another 18% agreed with the statement that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”
A survey conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab revealed in April that 55% of respondents who identified as left of center said that assassinating Trump would be at least somewhat justified.
RMG Research asked American adults in the wake of the September 2024 attempt on President Donald Trump’s life whether the country would “be better off if Donald Trump had been killed last weekend?” While 69% of respondents said no, 28% of Democrats answered “yes.”
The desire on the left to see consequence visited upon those who refuse to ideologically fall in line was also manifested during the pandemic, when a poll found that 45% of Democrats strongly or somewhat favored “having federal or state governments require that citizens temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine.”
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Charlie kirk, Turning point usa, Young america’s foundation, Yaf, Poll, Democrat, Liberal, Violence, Liberal violence, Survey, Politics
