Lessons about democracy from the Kirk assassination

In a very insightful analysis of the Kirk shooting G. Elliott Morris makes the following points (among others):

Polls overestimate support for political violence.  (The reason is that random responses to poll questions by people who are not paying attention lead to overestimates of support for very unpopular options.  For example, if no one supports political violence but 10% of poll respondents don’t pay attention and give random answers, then the poll will register 5% support for violence.)

People are more likely to support political violence when they believe that people in the other political party support violence, and people greatly overestimate the extent to which out-partisans support violence.

Correcting these misperceptions substantially reduces support for political violence.

Morris then draws the obvious conclusion that political leaders should unequivocally condemn political violence in the aftermath of attacks.

Finally, he points out that Trump and many of Kirk’s allies on the right responded to his killing with inflammatory rhetoric that encourages political violence.

If the link above is paywalled you can try this post of his, which makes similar points. 

I want to add a few thoughts.

First, one of the main lessons to draw from this is that democracy requires an educated public.  Public education – about the value of democracy, the extent to which people across the political spectrum believe in fair elections, etc. – is critical for maintaining support for open elections and a peaceful transfer of power.

Second, democracy requires responsible elites.  The reason is that political and economic elites will sometimes have an incentive to inflame partisan animosities for personal advantage.  Trump has such an incentive and clearly understands it.  He can expand support for his crackdown on universities and his critics in general by making Republican voters fearful of democrats and “radical leftists”.  We need political elites who will resist the temptation to entrench themselves in power by undermining democracy. 

This may seem like pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, and sometimes no doubt our political elites will disappoint (as Trump and many Republicans are doing now).  The point to focus on, however, is that there is no real alternative to public education and responsible elites.  There is no institutional fix for this problem.