Daniel Penny joins Kyle Rittenhouse
Being homeless and in mental distress is now a crime. One or more Twitter users have declared Jordan Neely, the street performer choked to death on a New York subway, a criminal. The online defense fund for his subway choker, Daniel Penny, quickly exceeded $1.6 million over the weekend.
Neely’s death was not explicitly political violence, but Neely may have been a casualty in the cultural civil war waged by the right. Even as MAGA celebrates Ashli Babbitt as a Jan. 6 martyr, the right is lining up to celebrate Penny as a cultural civil war hero like Kyle Rittenhouse.
Brian Klaas writes at his substack about the right’s open embrace of political violence:
In Texas, Governor Abbott previously said that he was “looking forward” to pardoning a man who murdered a Black Lives Matter protester. The murderer, Daniel Perry, was just sentenced to 25 years in prison. He had previously texted a friend that he “might have to kill” some people on his way to work.
Over the weekend, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted his support for a similarly named killer, Daniel Penny, after Penny killed a homeless Black man, Jordan Neely, on New York City’s subway by placing him in a lethal chokehold. DeSantis didn’t hold back: “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.”
This follows years of Trump’s normalization of political violence, not just with January 6th, but also with grotesque decisions, like his enthusiastic embrace of a Montana Republican candidate who violently assaulted a reporter, lied about it, and later pleaded guilty to assault. (That candidate, Greg Gianforte, is now the Republican governor of Montana). Similarly, Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who killed two men with an assault rifle, has become a rising star in America’s right-wing movement.
There is a “type” who supports political vigilantism:
The study was recently published in a top journal called Perspectives on Politics. It’s titled “Who Supports Political Violence?” and was conducted by two political scientists, Miles T. Armaly, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi and Adam M. Enders, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville.
The catalyst for their research was two-fold, it seems: first, they decided to try to make sense of January 6th. Second, they’re trying to get to the bottom of a worrying trend, in which a 2021 survey found that 56% of Republicans, 22% of Democrats, and 35% of independents agreed with the statement that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”
Now, as any self-respecting social scientist will tell you, the way you word a question matters a hell of a lot, and the may in that question is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It’s also very much not the case that all the people who agreed with that statement are actively preparing to use violence.
There are possible flaws in the study’s methods, Klaas suggests, but there is potential good news in it: “most Americans still completely reject political violence.”
And the alarming results? Those who do?
Some of them aren’t particularly surprising: men, for example, are far more likely than women to support political violence. Moreover, those who tend to have favorable views of authoritarianism and populism are more likely to support violence. And people who buy into conspiratorial thinking are also more likely to support violence. So, to recap, here are some key traits that predict support for political violence:
- Men
- Authoritarians
- Populists
- Conspiracy theory believers
No surprise there. What else?
First, perceived victimhood is highly correlated with support for political violence. This is crucial to underscore, because it’s completely different from actual victimhood. A lot of previous research on political violence has found that people who are being oppressed are more likely to turn to violence, which makes sense. But this study shows that it doesn’t really matter whether someone is actually being oppressed; instead, the feeling of being oppressed is sufficient. This was the strongest predictor of support for violence.
That’s important, because it dovetails perfectly with the next strong correlate: a strong sense of “white identity.” Not particularly surprising, perhaps, but good to confirm. And the two likely interact, as those who buy into the right-wing narrative that white people are under attack in America (due to the corresponding loss of social dominance as society becomes somewhat more equal than it was in the past) are also likely to be the same individuals who feel perceived victimhood.
Then, paradoxically, there’s religiosity. Two variables that the researchers tested—religious attendance and being an evangelical Christian—were correlated with those who support the use of political violence. That’s not good news, as it confirms that some of the normalization of violence is also tied to communities that are more religious (albeit, most likely just the slice of religion that is most sympathetic to Trumpism). Not exactly turning the other cheek…
And finally, there’s the most worrying variable: past military service. People who had previously served in the American armed forces were systematically more likely to express support for political violence than those who hadn’t. Indeed, 1 out of every 5 defendants in January 6th criminal cases has served in the military. That is not good news for the United States—or for the world.
You might want to get busy, Klaas urges, making sure Donald Trump does not get another chance to raise a MAGA army.