The Real Threat to the Midterms Is Regular Americans Thinking Violence Is the Answer

The attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not conducted mainly by extremists or fringe militia groups. It was, according to the data, the work of normal Americans.

That is the conclusion Robert A. Pape lays out in his new book, Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism, citing data about those who were arrested and charged following the attack.

While Proud Boys and Oath Keepers gained most of the headlines, data collected by Pape as part of his work as founding director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) found that the vast majority (90 percent) of those charged with crimes arising from the attack held no affiliation with militias or militant organizations.

Pape’s analysis found that 22 percent were business owners, and almost 30 percent held a college degree. Among the defendants were doctors, engineers, CEOs, and government employees. Nearly 40 percent held white-collar jobs, while just 8 percent of participants were unemployed.

The findings are key to understanding the warning that is central to Pape’s book: Americans do not understand that the threat of political violence is coming not from the fringes, but from the mainstream.

“As the 2026 midterms approach, US elections are entering a danger zone in which state power, protest, and political legitimacy increasingly collide,” Pape writes in the book. “For most Americans, political violence is still understood as episodic—shocking when it erupts but destined to fade. That assumption is reassuring. It is also increasingly dangerous.”

WIRED spoke to Pape about his book, his concerns about violence in the midterms, why it is so important to understand the attack on the Capitol, and what, if anything, gives him hope that democracy will win out.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

DAVID GILBERT: Your book is centered on the idea of violent populism. What is it, and why is it on the rise in 2026?

ROBERT A. PAPE: Violent populism is a dangerous political climate where substantial segments of the public increasingly accept physical force as a legitimate tool to gain, preserve, or defend political power. It is on the rise due to a profound cultural clash over the nature of American identity and citizenship, exacerbated by elite rhetoric that frames politics as an existential struggle between enemies. This structural dynamic transforms ordinary, mainstream citizens into active participants in political aggression.

You call the midterms “a stress test of whether American competition can remain bounded by nonviolence.” Are you concerned about the political violence around this election?

Yes, the level of concern for this election cycle is at an unprecedented high, surpassing anything seen since the deep social upheavals of the 1960s. With national anxieties amplified by a highly combustible domestic climate and global instability like the ongoing war with Iran, elections have increasingly become dangerous potential flashpoints. This dynamic represents a direct, critical test of whether our foundational institutions can still successfully enforce peaceful political transitions.

Heading into the midterms, a lot of people are focusing on possible action from extremist groups, such as militias. Is this the wrong thing to be worried about?

Focusing exclusively on fringe militias misdiagnoses the primary danger facing American democracy today. The real threat is that political radicalization has broken out of the fringes and fully migrated into the mainstream electorate. Our primary worry should be the tens of millions of ordinary Americans who now passively accept or actively endorse violence to achieve their political goals.

You write that Americans are misreading the warning signs of political violence, again. What are those warning signs?

The primary warning sign is the broad public normalization and passive acceptance of aggressive political acts as standard features of daily political life. This is signaled by an explosion of violent symbolism across the entire media spectrum and elite rhetoric that strips legitimacy away from opposing factions. When ordinary citizens begin to view political opposition as an existential, hostile force, the ground is fully prepared for real-world conflict.

You write in the book that the January 6th attack on the Capitol was a rubicon crossed between "routine political conflict and civil war." Why was it such an important turning point?

The January 6th attack shattered the all-important democratic norm that power changes hands through ballots rather than raw displays of physical coercion. It demonstrated that an electoral outcome could be violently challenged not by foreign adversaries, but by a massive crowd of American citizens targeting their own legislative body. This crossed line signaled that internal political disputes were no longer reliably bounded by a shared commitment to nonviolence.

The narrative around the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is that it was driven by extremist groups on the fringes of American society. But that's not what the data shows, right?

CPOST data completely disproves the fringe narrative by showing the remarkable mainstream geography of those involved in the insurrection. The vast majority of the actors were not isolated radicals or card-carrying militia members, but “normal” political activists with stable homes, jobs, and 401(k)s. Only 1 in 10 were militia members. Nearly half were doctors, lawyers, CEOs, business owners, US State Department appointees—and some even attended the White House Christmas party the year before. Most represented a cross-section of middle-class America acting on a shared, mainstream belief that democratic institutions were no longer legitimate.

Why do you think the prevailing narrative around the January 6 attack on the Capitol has been so wrong for so many years?

The narrative has been wrong because public institutions and media outlets initially relied heavily on imperfect law enforcement databases that naturally isolated the most prominent, organized fringe actors. And they did not update their readers and viewers as the bulk of the data came in. This approach ignored the underlying, broader structural dynamics of public opinion and extensive survey research. By focusing strictly on the visible, oddball characters, analysts missed the massive wave of passive, mainstream support that actually fueled the event.

My reading of this book is that most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of political violence in America in 2026. Is that accurate?

That is completely accurate and is the central, urgent argument of the entire book. The greatest threat to the United States is not an out-of-control group of radical extremists, but the reality that millions of otherwise ordinary citizens now accept violence as a regular political tool. Once political violence is normalized by the mainstream, old institutional solutions cease to function effectively.

You compare the current embrace of violent populism by middle-class white America to the expansion of the second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Do you think people will be shocked by that comparison?

Many readers will likely be shocked, because the modern imagination associates the Klan strictly with regional, low-income hate groups rather than a massive social movement. However, the historical data shows that the second KKK of the 1920s was a highly mainstream, middle-class organization driven by a cultural clash over American identity. Drawing this explicit parallel highlights how easily normal, institutionalized communities can slide into systemic intolerance when they feel their cultural dominance is threatened.

Do you think readers of the book will be surprised that defense of political violence is not solely the preserve of the right, but that people on the left also reinforce your thesis of violent populism?

Yes, readers who expect a one-sided partisan critique will be surprised to see that the call for political violence comes from both sides of the aisle. [Confessed health care CEO assassin Luigi] Mangione and the recent [accused] Trump assassin at the April White House Correspondents’ Dinner reflect political violence from the left, and they are far from alone. Original CPOST surveys reveal that violent style, aggressive symbolism, and the demonization of political opponents are heavily utilized by figures across the entire political spectrum. This multisided reality proves that violent populism is a systemic, societal failure rather than an isolated partisan phenomenon.

You say that it is not yet determined if the current transitional phase of American politics will “culminate in democratic renewal or deeper political breakdown.” Do you have a sense of when we might have an answer to this question?

We need to lean into the “good news” in my book: that 70 percent of Americans abhor political violence. This is the large, untapped resource that we need to lean into. My book is essentially for the 70 percent and a call to action for what they can do—beyond voting. The 70 percent are the heart of our democracy. Leaning into them is how we save our democracy and avoid a much deeper, systemic breakdown of American governance.

What, if anything, gives you hope that violent populism can be overcome?

Hope lies in the data that can give new active optimism to vast majorities of ordinary Americans on both the left and right that still share a fundamental desire for stability and governance. By recognizing that our enemies are not really each other, but the normalization of violence itself, we can deliberately choose strategies of restraint to rebuild our vital democratic norms—and find productive new solutions.