Polarized perceptions: how Americans view political violence in a divided era
by JoJo Martin (class of 2025)
Armed protesters scaling the walls of the capitol building, carrying a noose for the vice president.
A presidential candidate with a bloodied ear, a fist raised in triumph, an American flag billowing behind.
These images are etched into the modern American political consciousness. Before our generation, it was images of bloodied civil rights activists, JFK’s convertible, and anthrax-laced letters.
According to the United Nations, political violence can include “a range of political acts from mass protest, riots, coups, rebellions, uprisings and terrorism to violent acts committed by state and non-state actors.”
But in a time of seemingly unprecedented partisan polarization, do Americans view these events the same? Are they willing to justify or even commit acts of political violence if it benefits them? And how does this vary depending on political party?
The discourse about violence has revealed that many people are not wholly against it. For example, there were people on the left who lamented that the Trump assassination had failed, or that the murder of the United Health Care CEO, Brian Thompson was justified. Simultaneously more and more Republicans believe that January 6th was justified.
There is a plethora of public opinion data that supports an increase in American’s justification for political violence among both Republicans and Democrats. Headlines like “support for political violence jumps, survey says ,” or “1 in 5 Americans think violence may solve U.S. divisions, poll says,” or “Nearly one in four Americans believe political violence justified to ‘save’ US,” conveys that there is a willingness to commit violence among many Americans, and that this is a worsening problem.
A YouGov survey found that 67 percent of Americans believed political violence is more likely in the current political climate.
However, other researchers have found that public opinion data often overstates Americans’ willingness to commit political violence. They suggest this overestimation arises because disengaged survey respondents overwhelmingly select extreme or sensationalist options rather than have a real conviction to commit violent acts. Pollsters and researchers don’t exclude these disengaged voters, and as a result, surveys may paint a more alarming picture of support for violence than what truly exists in society. In actuality, Americans broadly reject extreme violence, political or not, and saying you would commit violent acts by checking a box on a survey is a lot easier than actually committing violent acts.
Just because surveys may overstate American’s support and/or willingness to commit violence, this support is not zero. As one researcher put it, “on any given day, there are thousands of people walking the streets who are openly armed and support committing political violence.”
There does seem to be some small increase in aggressive rhetoric that can lead towards violence. According to researchers, of people who had posted political content online, “64 percent said they had been targeted with political insults, 24 percent said they had been threatened, and 5 percent reported being physically attacked over politics — all three substantially and statistically more than the general public.”
Polls may overstate American’s willingness to commit violent acts, but polling can still tell us a lot about Americans’ perceptions of the prevalence of political violence, which illustrate significant insights about the state of our country.
We asked Americans about their views of political violence in the October poll by the Tufts Public Opinion Lab.
I was interested in how different partisans responded to certain primers — short prompts designed to focus attention on specific topics — so I conducted an experiment. Three randomly distributed groups were given different primers regarding the amount of media they have seen around recent events in the news.
The control group (n=306) was asked “In the past few months, how much have you heard in the media about extreme weather events (such as wildfires or hurricanes)?”
The two treatment condition groups were the January 6th group (n=315), which received “The events at the capitol building that occurred January 6, 2021, have been widely discussed in the media. How much media coverage have you seen of January 6 in anticipation of the upcoming election?”
The other condition was the Trump assassination group (n=308), which received “There have been two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in the past few months. How much have you heard about these assassination attempts in the media?”
On the next page of the survey, participants were then asked if there had been an increase, decrease, or no change in the amount of political violence in the last 8 years.
The results show that across all three conditions, Democrats report an increase in political violence at very similar rates.
Republicans, on the other hand, are far less likely than Democrats to report an increase of political violence across the control and January 6th conditions. But when primed with the Trump assassination condition, they reported significantly greater increases in political violence than Republicans in the other conditions. 70 percent of Republicans in the Trump assassination condition reported an increase in the amount of political violence in the last 8 years compared to 56 percent in the control condition and 59 percent in the January 6th condition (rounded to the nearest whole number).
These results suggest that Republicans are far less likely to report an increase in political violence unless they are primed by the news of Trump’s assassination attempts. This would indicate that Republicans have a narrower definition of political violence, denoting violence only as acts that affect their candidate.
A counter argument to this hypothesis is that the definition of “political violence” could be narrowed to acts as severe as political assassination attempts, and not include other acts like a violent protest/riot. But because Democrats report the same increase across the board, the results indicate that Republicans are particularly sensitive to the Trump assassination condition.
Survey respondents who reported an increase in political violence (regardless of condition), were also asked which group they deemed most responsible for the increase in political violence.
The graph illustrates that Democrats are more unified in attributing blame to right-wing extremist groups and Republican leadership, whereas Republicans are more split in where they place responsibility for an increase in violence. Both parties blame the other’s leadership and extremist groups, but Republicans are far more likely to blame the media and are generally more unsure.
The response from Independents is also illustrative. They are more likely to blame right-wing extremist groups than left-wing extremists and blame both party’s leadership at the same rate, which indicates that blame of right-wing extremists is more prevalent than other partisan groups. One explanation of this is the amount of media coverage surrounding right-wing groups, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, at events such as unite the right in Charlottesville in 2017, and the January 6th 2020 riot.
In addition to blaming right-wing extremists at a high rate, Independents are also more likely to blame the broader political climate and are unsure, which makes sense given their avoidance of strict partisan alignment. These results suggest that many Independents may view political violence through a lens of systemic dysfunction rather than attributing it solely to one political ideology or group.
This rejection of the broader system could also explain why Independents blame the media at higher rates than Democrats. Republicans blame the media at the highest rate, which could be explained by the inflammatory rhetoric about “the media” from major members of Republican leadership.
These results point towards perceptions of political violence following the trend of a widening partisan divide. Democrats blame Republicans, and vice versa. Republicans are generally less likely than Democrats to perceive an increase in political violence, still the majority of Republicans report an increase in violence.When they are specifically primed with news of Trump’s assassination this effect increases.
Ultimately, understanding public perceptions of political violence and their partisan contours is essential — not just to mitigate the risks of future violence, but to address the deep systemic divisions that fuel these justifications in the first place. A greater understanding of what fuels beliefs about political violence could help prevent it, and turn public opinion away. By closing the gap in partisan perceptions of violence, our democracy could collectively move towards a total rejection of violence.
