After the failed hit job on Trump** a couple of weeks ago I should have done a word search here on No Minister on “assassination”, because it turns out that I’d written a post on this subject two years ago, Aborted Assassinations, which incuded this graph from an American survey dealing with the specific question:
“Do you approve or disapprove of assassinating a politician who is harming the country or our democracy?”
Nearly half of Democrat men under the age of 50 (44 %) approved, as did 34% of Younger Republican Men, 40% of Younger Republican Woman, and 32% of Younger Democrat Woman.
Note the huge change on this issue from their older cohorts in both parties, and note also that their definition of “young” means that we’re not talking about immature youths in their teens and twenties who are the demographic for most crime.
This survey was conducted by a well-respected outfit called Tulchin Research and was done for the Southern Poverty Law Centre, who focused on one of their favourite topics – Right-wing Whites and The Great Replacement Theory – but apparently just allowed this question to be surveyed as well, since they were likely not expecting this result.
It also puts paid to the bullshit that NZ Herald “journalist” and hardline Lefty, Simon Wilson, put forward – in the July 17 episode of “Bomber” Bradbury’s political podcast, The Working Group – that 75% of major political violence comes from the Right. One of “Bomber’s” regular guests on the show, Damien Grant, immediately had Wilson up on this, asking him where he’d got those figures from.
Wilson had no answer of course, but he’ll make this bullshit claim again in the future I’m sure, at which point he needs to be slapped in the face with this result.
** On the basis of recent events, that 2022 survey, and that the political atmosphere in American has grown more polarised even since then, I’ve decided to add the tag “Assassination” to this post and one or two others from the past.
No Minister 
That comment that Simon Wilson made was beyond appalling. He just laid it out as a “fact”, and then when questioned couldn’t remember where it came from, couldn’t back it up, and finally cried that Damien was being mean and yelling.
He deserved to be yelled at. That one act epitomises everything that is wrong with the rubbish that people are being presented with.
But then Bomber rates him as “one of the best journalists in the country” and Bomber isn’t exactly into facts himself a lot of the time. Just hysterical rants.