Why does Robert Pape say the eight weeks after the 2026 midterms are the most dangerous?

Robert Pape told Steven Bartlett that three crises converge between the November 3 midterm vote and the seating of the new Congress on January 3: the transfer of power at home, Trump's promised escalation against Iran after the election, and Vladimir Putin's threat to attack Ukraine's power grid. He says transfers of power are the peak moment for political violence, as January 6 showed, and that a Democratic Congress with subpoena and impeachment powers would raise the pressure on Trump to double down.

• Pape's surveys find over 40 million Americans backing political violence for Trump and over 60 million against him.
• Pape says those numbers are double what they were in September 2024.
• Pape describes violent populism as a wildfire: the fuel is measurable but the spark is not.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett (2026-11-05). Read the whole episode summary →

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