If accurate, about a quarter of Americans believe Patriots will need to “take the law into their own hands” and also support the use of force to preserve the nations values, in theory. That’s comparable to American revolutionary times, when it’s estimated that a third of Americans supported the revolution. What percentage of modern Americans would actually support these concepts if Patriots in fact rose up en masse to take the law into their own hands and were using force to preserve the American way, is unclear. However, there did seemed to be a fair amount of support on the right for Kyle Rittenhouse and the January 6th Protesters, which is a positive indicator. The percentage of theoretical support does appear large enough that the more crucial question may not be how much support Patriots would have in such circumstances, but instead what circumstances must occur to rally the Patriot to active resistance in the first place.

I’m also interested in the 9% and 15% of Democrats who support those concepts, versus the 47% and 55% of Republicans who support the same concepts. I wonder if that’s an indication of Democrats and Republicans who would support combatants on their respective sides. Could be left-wing combatants would enjoy substantially less public support than would their right-wing opponents, though left-wing combatants would very likely have the support of the government and its forces in a conflict with the right. The notion of lesser support for left-wing combatants among Democrats compared to Republican support for right-wing combatants seems realistic as several factors exist which could contribute to such a phenomenon. The right are more unified in similarity overall, to include with regard to the ideology. The left are composed of a series of almost tacit alliances, such as union laborers who vote Democrat in an effort to preserve the state of their employment, or Latinos who desire the path to citizenship and other amenities the Democrats offer them as well as their illegal family members, yet these groups may otherwise be more Conservative in their values than Progressive. Additionally, the activities of such entities as BLM and ANTIFA may have eroded the support many Democrats have for left-wing combatants. They were held captive in the streets, harassed and had their local businesses looted and burned too. I’m fact, Democrats likely suffered at the hands of left-wing extremist groups the most, given that these activities were concentrated in Democrat strongholds. Indeed, it appears probable that Republicans are more likely to support their right-wing Patriots than would Democrats support their left-wing extremists in a conflict.