A QUARTER of Americans say they are ready to take up arms against the government

More than quarter of Americans – 28 per cent – said that it might ‘soon be necessary to take up arms’ against the US government, according to a new poll released Thursday. 

Of those who felt that way, 37 per cent currently own guns, the poll found.  

The poll also showed that a majority of Americans – liberal and conservative both – felt that their government was ‘corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me.’

The survey, which polled a pool of 1,000 US voters, was conducted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in May.

The poll revealed deep divides between Americans of differing viewpoints, with nearly identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats (73 and 74 per cent) saying that the other side ‘are generally bullies who want to impose their political beliefs on those who disagree.’

The poll comes as the US House Select Committee’s investigation into President Trump’s role in the violent January 6 insurrection against the Capitol is being publicly broadcast across the nation.

The survey found that overall, 49 per cent of Americans agreed that they ‘more and more feel like a stranger in my own country.’

The breakdown in the political leanings of those who felt that sentiment was characteristic of the rest of the survey – 69 per cent of voters who identified as ‘very conservative’ expressed it, while only 38 per cent of self-identified ‘strong democrats’ did. 

Voters’ distrust of elections – which spurned the January 6 riots – also followed similar lines. Though 56 per cent of Americans felt they ‘generally trust elections to be conducted fairly and counted accurately,’ party divisions among those who felt that were stark. 

Eighty per cent of Democrats expressed trust in elections, while only 51 per cent of independents and 33 per cent of Republicans polled said they did. 

More than quarter of Americans – 28 per cent – said that it might ‘soon be necessary to take up arms’ against the US government, according to a new poll released Thursday

Armed protestors demonstrating outside the Virginia State House in Richmond on January 18, 2022

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One third of Republicans polled held the belief that armed resistance to the government may soon be necessary, while 35 percent of independent voters felt that way, and 20 percent of Democrats. 

Nearly half of all people polled said they avoid talking politics with people ‘because I don’t know where they stand,’ and a quarter said they had lost friends, and avoided friends and relatives over politics. 

‘While we’ve documented for years the partisan polarization in the country, these poll results are perhaps the starkest evidence of the deep divisions in partisan attitudes rippling through the country,’ pollster Neil Newhouse, who is a Republican, said. He conducted the poll with pollster Joel Benenson, a Democrat.