'Endorsing a coup': 3 in 10 Republicans support 'patriot' violence to 'save our country'

22 October 2024

A massive new study finds a large number of Republicans, Trump supporters, and conservatives support violence under the guise of saving the country or ensuring the “rightful” leader is put in the White House.

Three in ten Republicans (29%) believe “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization PPRI’s “2024 American Values Survey.”

Nearly one in four MAGA Republicans (23%) “say that if Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.” That view is also held by nearly one on five (19%) Republicans overall, including those who do not support Trump.

MAGA Republicans, or “Republicans who view Trump favorably are three times as likely as those who hold unfavorable views [of Trump] to support political violence (32% vs. 11%).

More than one in five Republicans (22%) agree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions.”

The study also looked at the politico-religious component of support for political violence, and found one-third (33%) of “Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers” agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”

Additionally, one-third of Latter-day Saints (33%) and nearly one in three white evangelical Protestants (28%) “agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”

Where Americans get their news appears to be a factor in their views on issues including violence and immigration.

“Americans who trust conservative news outlets are the most likely to support political violence (41%), followed by 30% of those who most trust Fox News, 18% of those who do not watch any TV news, and 13% of those who most trust mainstream TV news.”

Six in ten Republicans (61%) agree that “immigrants entering the country illegally today are poisoning the blood of our country,” PRRI’s survey finds, along with a “majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (70%) or Fox News (65%).”

Similarly, nearly two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the “Great Replacement Theory,” and agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” PRRI also finds that the “vast majority of far-right news (83%) and Fox News viewers (66%) agree with this theory,” as do the majority of Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (63%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%), as well as half (50%) of Latter-day Saints.

“Nearly eight in ten Republicans (79%) favor putting undocumented immigrants in encampments,” PRRI also found. “The vast majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (91%) or Fox News (82%) favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants.”

“White evangelical Protestants (75%) are most likely to favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants, followed by the majority of white Catholics (61%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (58%), and Latter-day Saints (56%).”

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and these answers … are keeping me up at night,” PRRI president and founder Robert P. Jones told Axios. “It’s all pretty dark and worrisome.”

Axios had reported: “The growing number of Republicans willing to shun democratic norms — and possibly embrace violence — comes as Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him and is saying the 2024 election is already rigged.”

“Jones said those supporting the loser of the election doing whatever it takes to assume office are essentially endorsing a coup against the United States.”

Last week, Jones told MSNBC’s Joy Reid (video below), “there are [survey] questions that we have had to write during the Trump era as social scientists that I never thought we would have to write.”

“So to write that question and put it on a public opinion survey and say, we actually need to know what the American people think about this statement, that whether immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country, right, is just, I think we just pause for a minute, to say how astonishing that is.”

He added, “we’re all taught to kind of not be knee-jerk and kind of use the Nazi analogy…but like, ‘poisoning the blood’ — Mein Kampf uses the word blood 150 times,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto.

“That’s Hitler’s word, right? And it’s often, it’s almost always used in this way, this kind of idea of purity and defilement, contamination, and it’s a politics of disgust that we’re really seeing here.”

Watch Jones on MSNBC below or at this link.

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