How Much Should We Worry about Political Violence?

Newsletter January 6, 2022

Capitol rioters breeching an entrance to the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Last year, Tom Gjelten of NPR asked me what I made of the fact that our poll showed nearly four in ten Republicans appeared to endorse the use of force in politics. I said it was “pretty scary”. A year later, I still feel that way. That 29 percent of Americans, and 39 percent of Republicans, appear ready to justify the use of violent actions is deeply troubling. More recent polling is no less worrisome.

A slate of polls released over the past month paints a disturbing picture of the public confidence in American elections and democracy.

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Survey Reports

Daniel A. Cox
July 23, 2026

A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience

If teenage years once represented a time of rebellion, teenagers’ lives today are marked less by pushing boundaries and more by building their own. Many teenage experiences are less common than they once were—dating, working a part-time job, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol are less common experiences. The 2026 American Teenagers Survey from the

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
April 27, 2026

Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging

Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since