Most Republicans Say Force May Be Needed to Save ‘Traditional’ America: Poll

[ad_1]

A new poll offers a disturbing picture of the Republican Party’s beliefs about democracy. Nearly half of Republicans said the time may come when they have to take the law into their own hands. The majority of Republicans supported the potential use of force to support “traditional” America. Something is loading.

Less than a year after a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol, nearly half (47%) of Republican voters said “there will come a time when patriotic Americans will have to take the law into their own hands,” according to a new nationwide survey from the College of Media and Public Affairs. George Washington University.

The poll found that only about 29% of Americans agree with this statement at some level, including only 9% of Democrats. And 49% said they disagree or strongly disagree.

The poll also found that a majority of Republicans (55%) say “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” About 15% of Democrats agreed with this statement, but Americans opposed it more (46%) than agreed (34%).

More Republicans (27%) than Democrats (18%) said that “strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.”

The poll also found very low levels of trust among Republicans when it comes to elections – 82% said it was “hard to trust election results when so many people vote for who gives a handout.” Only 15% of Democrats were on the same page.

Similar to other recent polls on the 2020 election, the poll found that only 20% of Republicans were confident in the results of the 2020 election compared to more than 90% of Democrats.

YouGov conducted the poll of 1,753 registered US voters from June 4 to 23.

Over the course of the Trump era, democracy experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the Republican Party’s slide into authoritarianism. Democracy scholars continued to sound the alarm as Republican-led legislatures in states across the country lobbied for restrictive voting laws, using similar justifications to President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of mass voter fraud after he somewhat lost the 2020 election. . Along these lines, a former Trump administration official recently cited the Republican Party as the greatest threat to the United States’ national security.

More than a quarter of Americans qualify as having right-wing authoritarian political beliefs, according to a Morning Consult poll released in late June.

Although Trump sparked a rebellion in the Capitol and stands as the only commander-in-chief in history to be impeached twice, he remains the leader of the Republican Party. Congressional Republican leaders also criticized the House’s investigation into the January 6 rebellion.

During a hearing Tuesday by the House select committee running the investigation, four police officers testified about the violence they experienced by Trump supporters at the Capitol. One officer referred to the mutinies as “terrorists,” and another said the Capitol riots amounted to an “attempted coup.”

[ad_2]