Why do some individuals with military experience support the insurrection of January 6? With US military veterans playing a central role in the assault on the US Capitol, answering this question is of immediate scholarly and policy concern. To better understand the impact of military service, we conducted the first nationally representative survey of support for pro-Trump anti-democratic violence (“insurrectionist sentiments”) among US military veterans and a demographically matched sample of non-veterans. Our analysis finds veterans nearly twice as likely to hold high insurrectionist sentiments than non-veterans, and that military service increases support for restoring Trump to the presidency by force by 15 percent. Further, we find the effect veterancy is not fully explained by veterans being more likely to hold pro-Trump or conspiracy beliefs but is associated with negative military and post-service-related experiences. These findings are robust to significant unobserved confounding. We conclude with implications for future research on political violence and the role of the military in American democracy.

中文翻译：

---

了解服兵役对支持美国叛乱的影响


为什么一些有军事经验的人支持 1 月 6 日的起义？由于美国退伍军人在美国国会大厦袭击事件中发挥着核心作用，回答这个问题立即成为学术和政策关注的问题。为了更好地了解兵役的影响，我们对美国退伍军人和人口统计匹配的非退伍军人样本进行了首次全国代表性调查，调查了支持特朗普的反民主暴力（“叛乱情绪”）。我们的分析发现，退伍军人持有高度叛乱情绪的可能性是非退伍军人的近两倍，而且服兵役使特朗普以武力恢复总统宝座的支持率增加了 15%。此外，我们发现退伍军人的影响并不能完全解释为退伍军人更有可能持有支持特朗普或阴谋的信念，而是与负面的军事和退役相关经历有关。这些发现对于重大的未观察到的混杂因素是稳健的。最后，我们对政治暴力和军队在美国民主中的作用的未来研究产生了影响。