43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States

The sample size is actually not really a problem. But 20% of Dems and 29% of Independents feel the same way. 43% isn't quite as outlandish in that context. Without the other numbers, a headline of "20% of Democrats could imagine supporting a coup" would be pretty shocking too.

 

...per their data, Q14 ask if there's any situation in which they'd support a coup and 43% republicans and 29% overall say yes.

then Q15 suggests one situation -- violation of constitution -- and the coup approval jumps to 55% republican and 43% overall.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...sbcesczz/tabs_OPI_Civil_Military_20150903.pdf

no info on the baby hitler, or space aliens scenarios.

 

A sample of almost 1000, assuming the sample was randomly selected, will have a margin of error of less than 6% and is reasonable for basing inferences.

 

Standard error is SD/sqrt(n) since n is 1000. If SD is 25%/32and you have your standard error. That is a pretty good sample size.

 

I wonder if it is possible to correlate the % of GOP who would support a coup to the % of GOP who believe the federal government is attacking in Jade Helm and the % of GOP who think Obama is a Muslim?

 

i think you could play with the math however you choose.

but an ambiguous question leads to poor data.

51% of democrats would oppose any military takeover of the government. But only 37% would oppose a military takeover if the elected leaders violated the constitution?

 

I think the problem is that decent % of conservatives (larger than you'd expect) believe his equivalent is already in the White House. How many conservatives would support a military coup to overthrow Obama?

 

I think it's interesting that they picked the coup as the vehicle of leadership change. I suppose the rest of the work is about how well regarded the military men are. But, what would the answers be to:

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting an impeachment and removal of members of the federal government?

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting a popular nonviolent protest of the federal government?

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting a popular violent revolution to overthrow the federal government?

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting a state secession from the federal government?

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting a foreign intervention of the federal government?

Is there any situation in which you could imagine yourself supporting a military coup of the federal government that will destabilize the country, inciting popular revolutions and necessitating government crackdowns on dissidents including the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs, creating a world outcry and an invasion by foreign interventionists and UN peacekeepers to get America's **** in order?

Not only would the numbers jump all around on each of those questions, but they'd probably inform one another such that the 43% of Republicans probably wouldn't be so keen on military coups by the time they finished the survey.

 

Like Chavez amirite

 

Not really meaning to point fingers or anything, but I believe you were arguing before for revolution over systemic racism in the government (idk, maybe in the Ferguson thread?). Is it the 'overthrowing the government' part or the 'military takeover' part that you find so alarming?

 

they also primed the coup question with a lead in question on the integrity of the military and distrust of the government.

 

Our half-Shia, half-Sunni, half-Kenyan, half-Indonesian, sleeper, Muslim, super agent is like ten Hitlers.



He aint even dat smart!

 

Maybe Orwell has poisoned my mind, but we just went through starting a costly and tragic war that wasn't really justified other than the remote possibility of nuclear weapons yet was fiercely and aggressively accepted by the American people in the guise of supporting our troops. I got my yellow ribbon sticker derp.

The fact that we have more intrusions in our civil liberties creates heightened expectations of government sponsored safety and even more backlash and outrage if another catastrophic event in public safety occurs, and not the opposite.

Food for thought. Call me out if I'm being too cynical.

 

Well, if governments can start elective, futile wars based on lies and paranoia, why can't the people? Bear in mind very few private citizens have arms or strategy for preemptively attacking their allies, but our government (rightly) develops and exercises those plans regularly. In any case, liberals, hippies and black militants would have probably posited the same numbers in the '60s and '70s, in fact some of those factions or individuals broke off and became libertarians and paleo-conservatives down the road.

 

Not in a Venn diagram sort of way, at least not with the data available to us.

 

No matter how well this is explained to you, you will never understand. As your attorney I advise to stop trying.

 

Oh, some would have, but the majority of us were more interested in changing things within the system through the electoral process. Kent State briefly caused some of the folks against the madness in Vietnam to worry about armed governmental attacks on peaceful protesters, which, had they been an "official or semi-official policy," instead of a spontaneous act of stupidity by a local militia, could have led to armed conflict in the streets. People might be surprised at how many "liberals and hippies" were in fact gun owners who liked to hunt from time to time, or enjoyed shooting at a range or in the country. "Black militants" covers a lot of ground. Many Blacks were involved in the anti-war movement that I wouldn't describe as "militant," like the Black Panthers, for example. I agree with your comment that a number of us ended up becoming Libertarians/Paleo-conservatives. I know a couple of them very well. They were quite different back then.