Among the minority of Americans who support political violence, a large percentage of that group are reliant on conservative media, particularly Fox News. Those are the findings from PRRI’s 2024 American Values Survey of over 5,000 adults from across the United States.
Overall, only 18% of Americans said they would back political violence “because things have gotten so far off track.” But among those who were pro-violence, 41% were people who trust conservative news outlets. Of those who back violence, 30% said they trust Fox News the most as a source of information.
Support for violence was highest among Republicans, with 29% in favor. Among Democrats, only 8% said they would similarly back violence.
The bias in favor of violence reflects the rhetoric of Donald Trump, who has referred to Democrats and the left as an “enemy from within” while calling for a military response to dissent. Fox helped to launch Trump as a political figure and has used its daily coverage to continually boost his campaign and to attack Democrats.
The findings of the PRRI survey echo the recently released Civiqs poll for Daily Kos that showed an overwhelming majority (95%) of surveyed Fox News viewers who said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about fraud in the election. At the same time, multiple Republican candidates running for office this year have been pushing election fraud lies and conspiracies.
Fox News has promoted election myths throughout the 2024 campaign, feeding viewers with fresh material that these polls now show contributes to violent attitudes. The network has done so even after being forced to pay a near-$800 million settlement after it was sued for airing fraudulent election conspiracies about voting services firm Dominion Voting Systems.
Conservative MAGA activists have begun discussing their post-election plans for more Jan. 6-type attacks. “January 6th is going to be pretty fun,” one pro-Trump operative told CNN.
Whatever is to come, Fox News and their allies in conservative media played a key role in bringing the nation to this dark moment.
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