Jordan Peterson shares poll showing white liberals embrace using violence to pursue political goals more than conservatives

Following the summer of regular riots in American cities by Black Lives Matter and Antifa members as well as the January storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, there is debate about which side of the political spectrum embraces violence to achieve their goals. A poll found that white liberals are far more likely to support using violence to advance their political agenda.

The new data was provided by the American National Elections Studies, which was established by the National Science Foundation in 1977. The Time Series Study has been conducted before and after U.S. general elections since 1948. The 2020 ANES Time Series Study was carried out by the University of Michigan and Stanford University.

Participants were asked: "How much do you feel it is justified for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" Respondents could answer with "Not at all," "A little," "A moderate amount," A lot," and "A great deal." The study has a total of 8,280 interviews that were conducted before the 2020 presidential election.

Bestselling author and University of Toronto psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson shared an eye-opening revelation from the 2020 ANES Time Series Study. On his Twitter page, Peterson shared a graph from the poll showing responses from white American adults across the political spectrum from "very liberal" to "very conservative."

The graph shows each political demographic and the percentage of respondents who answered "Not at all" to the question: "How much do you feel it is justified for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" The graph shows the percentage of white Americans who would never consider using violence to advance their political goals.

The survey found that 95.8% of "very conservative" white respondents said violence should never be used to pursue a political ambition, which was up from 93.3% in 2016. "Conservative" respondents were nearly identical, with 95% disavowing political violence in 2020 and 93.3% in 2016.

However, on the other end of the political spectrum, leftists are more likely to embrace political violence as a means to an end. According to the poll, only 66.5% of "very liberal" white respondents said it was wrong to use violence to attain their political goals. That means that over a third of "very liberal" Americans would justify using some or a "great deal" of violence to pursue their political goals. In the 2016 survey, the percent of "very liberal" respondents willing to endorse political violence was much higher at 86.9%.

There were 82.8% that identified as "liberals" who were against political violence, down from 88.1% in 2016.

The survey found that 85.8% of "moderates" said political violence should never be used, down one percentage point from four years ago.

The 2020 ANES Time Series Study found that Republicans were less accepting of using violence for political gains compared to Democrats and independents. Along racial lines, white Americans were the least to support using violence to pursue political goals compared to Asians, Hispanics, and blacks.