A new survey reveals that nearly one in three Americans now believes that violence is necessary to address the country’s political crises.

According to the latest PBS/NPR/Marist poll, published on Wednesday, 30% Americans say violence is the only solution to the nation’s numerous political problems.

This marks a sharp rise from 18 months ago, when an identical PBS poll found that just 19% of respondents held the same view.

Since April 2024, the belief that violence may be necessary has grown by three percentage points among Republicans and seven points among independents.

However, the largest increase has occurred among Democrats: 28% now agree that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track,” a 16-point jump since the last survey.

The poll comes amid a series of recent high-profile incidents of political violence in the US, including the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last month; the murder of a Democratic state legislator and her husband in Minnesota in June; the throwing of a Molotov cocktail into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April; and two assassination attempts on US President Donald Trump last summer during his reelection campaign.

At the same time, the number of Americans who believe the country is moving in the wrong direction has risen sharply since Trump returned to the Oval Office.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said the nation is headed in the wrong direction, an increase of eight percentage points since March.

“We have had an erosion in a lot of norms and rules, and in our institutions that has accelerated in the last year,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion.

“The overarching concern is the excessive polarization surrounding many political issues, which has left the country increasingly divided,” he added.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans view politically motivated violence as a major concern.

Approximately three-quarters of poll respondents considered it a significant issue, marking a 4 percentage point increase since July, before Kirk’s assassination.

In addition, most Americans believe the Trump administration has gone too far in restricting free speech.

In the weeks following Kirk’s death, the Trump administration and his far-right allies launched an organized effort to target individuals they claimed celebrated Kirk’s death online.

By a margin of 61% to 20%, respondents disapproved of how the government handled files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s death, the late financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison six years ago.

Several sources familiar with the case have revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) redacted the names of several high-profile political figures, including Trump himself.

The poll indicates that the majority of Americans want the names of all perpetrators to be released while keeping the names of the victims confidential.