Nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country," according to the survey. This is up from 15% in 2021.
In a statement, PRRI researchers say they have asked about this in "eight separate surveys since March 2021." They said that "this is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%" in their survey results.
While Americans across the political spectrum feel democracy is at risk next year, support for political violence runs mostly along party lines.
Currently one-third of Republicans support violence as a means to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats, the survey found. More specifically, Republicans who have favorable views of Donald Trump were found to be "nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump" to support political violence.
Compared to past surveys, researchers also found an uptick in support for conspiracy theories among Americans — specifically QAnon. According to PRRI, there has been a significant increase in "QAnon believers (from 14% to 23%)," as well as a "a decrease in QAnon rejecters," since 2021. However, Republicans are still twice as likely as Democrats to agree with the core beliefs of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
I'm one of those who votes for Democrats, but increasingly want to see violence against our politicians, supreme court justices, and others who are not following the will of the people.
Unfortunately this doesn't work in practice. Sporadic murders of high profile politicians end up causing a lot of fear and galvanizing public sentiment towards tough-on-crime and other fascist leaders. A wide-scale revolution is almost always co-opted by a strong, militant group that seeks to establish an autocracy afterwards. Often they are bankrolling the revolution. And if they don't exist at the time of revolution, it is inevitable they pop up to seize control afterwards.
Also, this is essentially Republicans' plans: Project 2025
I.e. a coup.
handmaid's tale