Robert Pape on insurrectionist movement in U.S. – “Intelligence

In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, about the insurrectionist movement in the United States. Pape reviews the results of recent studies and polls carried out in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and reveals troubling findings about the breadth and depth of anti-government sentiment in the United States. He also describes why more studies are needed to prevent additional violence from targeting the 2022 midterm elections. 

Highlights

• Insurrectionist sentiment mainstream? Over 50 percent of those arrested for breaking into the Capitol on January 6 live in areas that are large urban areas that Biden won. That is, they’re not coming from the rural areas of America that are most associated with Donald Trump and support for Donald Trump. And this tells us something very important. It means that January 6 was not just another instance of far-right violence. This was a very different thing now. Different enough in degree to be different in kind. What we saw is an act of collective political violence, attacking our most cherished of symbols of our democracy, the U.S. Capitol, in order to change the results of our most cherished constitutional process, who becomes our president of the United States.”
• American views on presidential legitimacy: “[W]hat we discovered was that nine percent of American adults, which equates to 23 million people, believed that force was justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency. Within that nine percent over half – that is, five percent of all American adults – strongly agreed that force was justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency. That’s 12 million American adults. That’s much larger than any of us would have thought before this poll.” 
• Preventing political violence: “We need to realize that we’re moving into not just a politically tumultuous 2022 election season, but we need to understand the risks that that could break out into violence. Now, we’re never going to be able to put a probability on that, but we can do things to better survey and understand and diagnose the degree and risks of political violence in America.” 

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Intelligence Matters: Robert Pape

Producer: Olivia Gazis

MICHAEL MORELL: Bob, welcome back to Intelligence Matters. You’re becoming a regular.

ROBERT PAPE: Well, thank you very much, Michael. I am very proud to be here.

MICHAEL MORELL: And it’s good to talk to you. I always learn something profound, actually, so I’m really looking forward to this.

Bob, you were on our show in March, and at that time you were sharing with us the results of some fascinating research that your center had done on those individuals who had been arrested for their involvement in their insurrection at the Capitol on January…