Why Do So Many Young Americans Justify Political Violence?

Ninety-three percent of baby boomers think it’s never acceptable. Only 56% of Gen Z agrees.

By Kevin Wallsten. He is a professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Excerpts:

"more than one-third of students now say “using violence to stop a campus speech” can be acceptable."

"While 93% of baby boomers and 86% of Generation X say violence is never acceptable, only 71% of millennials and 58% of Generation Z do. And, there’s no meaningful difference between the attitudes of 18- to 26-year-olds who are and who aren’t enrolled in college."

"Several forces have converged to lead us here: a youth moral culture guided by an impossibly expansive definition of “harm” and that elevates emotional safety above all other values, social-media dynamics that amplify outrage and feed the perception that the “other side” is “getting away with it,” and a political climate that encourages people to treat their opponents as threats that need to be neutralized rather than fellow citizens to be persuaded."

"As former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted, “Academia cannot be a no go zone for conservatives. . . . It will help heal the country if the liberal left that dominates colleges actively reaches out and peacefully welcomes the right.”"