Polling shows that 30% of both major U.S. political parties believe that members of the other party are “less than human” and not possessed of human morality.
This belief is the precondition for full-on genocide, as in so many countries before us from whom we will probably never learn.
I had a statistic on the number of people convinced that complete liquidation of the other party was required for America to recoup its glory, goodness, and standing as a unipolar hegemony, but I can’t find it now. I will edit this post if/when I find it.
[The closest I have come so far is this recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, which shows that 12-15% of both parties think political violence is acceptable to achieve political goals:
This is still not wholesale liquidation, though. I saw but cannot yet document that some Americans think liquidation of the Other Side is necessary for a good political/social outcome and the number is significant enough to worry about.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/01/20/polarization-science-evolution-psychology/
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/
More hopefully:
Most hopeful — perhaps in an ostrich-y way — is this article from the National Academy of Sciences saying that conclusions about partisan violence are the fault of poorly defined survey questions that result in unfair characterization of the respondents’ views as extremist.