Approval of extreme right-wing organizations and social movements and support for political violence in the United States: findings from a nationally representative survey.

backgroundConcern for political violence in the United States remains high. The limited information available indicates that approval of specific extreme right-wing organizations and social movements is associated with support for and willingness to engage in political violence, but systematic data are lacking. The study objective is to quantify those associations at the individual level in a nationally representative survey sample.

methodsCross-sectional analysis from Wave 1 of a nationally representative survey of members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, conducted May-June 2022. The exposure is approval (categorized from non-approval to strong approval) of 8 named organizations and social movements, considered individually and together. Principal outcomes are justification for political violence, in general and to advance specific political objectives; willingness to engage in political violence, by type of violence and target population; and expectation of firearm use in political violence. Outcomes are expressed as weighted percentages and adjusted prevalence differences (aPDs, expressed in absolute percentage points (pp)).

resultsThe completion rate was 55.8%; there were 8,620 respondents. After weighting, 50.6% of respondents (95% CI 49.4%, 51.7%) were female, and 62.6% (95% CI 61.4%, 63.9%) were white, non-Hispanic; the weighted mean (SD) age was 48.4 (18.0) years. Few respondents (1.4%, 95% CI 1.0%, 1.8%) strongly approved of the organizations and movements considered together. However, strong approvers were much more likely than non-approvers to consider violence usually or always justified to advance specific political objectives and much more willing to engage in political violence; aPDs frequently exceeded 30% points. To advance a political objective, 29.1% (95% CI 18.4%, 39.8%) of strong approvers were very or completely willing to kill someone, and 18.1% (95% CI 8.5%, 27.7%) thought it very or extremely likely that they would shoot someone; prevalences among non-approvers were 0.9% (95% CI 0.5%, 1.2%) and 0.6% (95% CI 0.3%, 0.9%), respectively.

conclusionsApproval of extreme right-wing organizations and social movements is strongly associated with support for and willingness to engage in political violence. Given continued concern for political violence in the United States and the new possibility that such individuals might join federal law enforcement in large numbers, focused prevention measures are urgently needed.