More see domestic terrorism as bigger threat than foreign terrorism: Survey
This story raises questions about governance, accountability, and American values.
Thirty-three percent of Americans now say domestic terrorism is the biggest threat to the average person’s safety, versus 20 percent who point to foreign terrorism. That’s the Reuters/Ipsos poll number making the rounds. Fine.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
More Americans see domestic terrorist attacks as a larger threat than foreign ones, according to a new poll. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 33 percent of respondents said domestic terrorism is the most significant threat to the average American's safety, while 20 percent said the same of foreign terrorism.
Forty-two percent identified random violent acts, like
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Thirty-three percent of Americans now say domestic terrorism is the biggest threat to the average person’s safety, versus 20 percent who point to foreign terrorism. That’s the Reuters/Ipsos poll number making the rounds. Fine. But the other number in the same story is the one that should jolt people awake: 42 percent picked “random violent acts.” In other words, a whole lot of Americans aren’t thinking about organized plots at all. They’re thinking about the feeling you get at a mall, a school, a parade route, or a subway platform when you realize nobody really has a handle on the basics anymore.
There’s a reason “domestic” is beating “foreign” in people’s minds. The government, the media, and half of social media have spent years teaching the public to look inward for villains. Sometimes that’s warranted. Plenty of ugly stuff has happened here. But the phrase “domestic terrorism” has also been stretched until it’s close to useless, a catch-all for whatever the authorities want to treat as a special category this week. If you want citizens to take the label seriously, stop using it like a political seasoning.
We also shouldn’t kid ourselves that foreign threats took a vacation. The world is not calmer. Our border isn’t exactly a high-security checkpoint. And online radicalization doesn’t care whether the person typing is sitting in Ohio or overseas. Americans can worry about more than one thing at a time. The poll reads less like a careful threat assessment and more like a snapshot of what’s been front-of-mind lately, especially after a steady diet of headlines that treat every homegrown case as evidence of a national plague.
If we’re serious, the response isn’t grandstanding about “extremism.” It’s basic competence. Enforce immigration law. Share intelligence like adults. Prosecute real conspiracies, not opinions. And get honest about everyday public safety, because “random violent acts” isn’t just a statistic. It’s the public describing a country where too many places feel lightly governed and loosely protected.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.