by A.M. Juster
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| Nearly a quarter of Americans say it's sometimes OK to use violence against the government—and 1 in 10 Americans say violence is justified "right now." That's the finding of a new report by The COVID States Project, which asked 23,000 people across the country whether it is "ever justifiable to engage in violent protest against the government?" The report is one of several in recent months that find people more likely to contemplate violent protests than they had been in the past. Christian Davenport, a professor at the University of Michigan and a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, is… circumspect. While the numbers are "not especially surprising," Davenport said he's "not a fan of the use of polls exclusively" to determine a populace's potential for violence. "Individuals will say a great number of things on a poll," he said, "but never show up for anything." Photo: Trump supporters climb the west wall of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. —NPR, January 31, 2022 |
I hear them in their future seminars
propounding theories about our fall
that may well make them academic stars,
but make no sense at all,
and yet, if I were there instead of dead,
I could not mount a lively refutation
to what those unborn experts will have said,
but would just vent frustration.
As when deflated praetors palmed off keys
to Rome on Goths they labelled "primitive,"
our leaders, cultures and democracies
became diminutive.
It never seemed it had to be this way,
and we were calm as strongmen made us weak.
There was still time. We knew what we should say.
Too many did not speak.
A.M. Juster’s work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Hudson Review. His eleventh book will be published by W.W. Norton next year.