'Alarming finding': 30 percent of Republicans say violence may be needed to save U.S., poll shows

[Celerity]

https://news.yahoo.com/prri-poll-republicans-violence-040144322.html

Mon, November 1, 2021, 5:01 AM

Almost one-third of Republicans say they think violence may be necessary to solve the problems facing the United States, according to a new national survey by the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute. The finding is part of PRRI’s 12th annual American Values Survey released Monday which, among other things, highlights the continued impact of the same falsehoods and conspiracy theories that fuelled the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly one year later.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 16 and Sept. 29 through online interviews with a random sample of 2,508 adults living in all 50 states. Nearly one in five, or 18 percent, of overall respondents said they agreed with the statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” including 30 percent of Republicans, 11 percent of Democrats and 17 percent of independents.

“It is an alarming finding,” said Robert Jones, CEO and founder of PRRI. “I’ve been doing this a while, for decades, and it’s not the kind of finding that as a sociologist, a public opinion pollster, that you’re used to seeing.” Overall, the responses to this question illustrate the “significant and rapidly increasing polarization in the United States,” he said.

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said that it’s “extremely disturbing” that “nearly a third of the Republicans measured in this poll are getting comfortable with the idea of political violence.” And, he said, the much smaller percentages of Democrats and independents who expressed support for this idea are also “enough to be concerning.”

snip