Even though 55 percent of citizens in the Mountain States say that violence at the Capitol was “definitely not justified” and 58 percent believe that “political violence is not justified in a democracy, the better solution is the ballot box,” a remaining 20 percent (including 25 percent of Republicans) believe that “political violence is justified in a democracy when you believe things have gotten so bad that the government is not acting in the best interests of the people.” And a full 22 percent were “not sure” whether violence is justified or not.

Here is the bottom line: Things have not gotten better since the election or the inauguration, they have gotten worse.

When we have one in four or one in five Americans who support violent behavior and taking up arms, that is a nation on the brink, a country in real danger.

Add to that the behavior of some of our elected officials, the former president and those closest to him, as well as the fact that few national leaders on the Republican side make any attempt to tamp down the tendency toward violence, and the trend is heading in the wrong direction. In the Mountain States, 61 percent of the people surveyed believe that it is very or somewhat likely that we will see violence similar to what we saw at the Capitol on Jan. 6.