The latest national Fox News poll included a question that hasn’t traditionally been asked in the United States, but which is of increasing importance. It read:
Some people say things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right, while others say the president should always follow the rules and laws — which comes closest to your view?
Not surprisingly, voters on the left weren’t exactly eager to endorse indifference to the rule of law: 11% of Democratic voters and an identical number of voters who describe themselves as liberals said presidents should put side rules and laws.
But on the right, it was a different story: 36% of Republican voters, 38% of voters who backed Donald Trump and 40% of “very conservative” voters all expressed support for a president “willing to break some rules and laws to set things right.”
And while these results were discouraging, the resulting image looks even worse when one compares the responses to a Fox News poll conducted in December 2023, which included the identical question. At the time, 28% of Republican voters, 30% of Trump voters and 29% of those who described themselves as “very conservative” endorsed a lawless president.
In other words, after Trump returned to the presidency, GOP support for authoritarianism got noticeably worse.
What’s more, this isn’t the only available data on the underlying question. A Monmouth University poll conducted late last year, for example, asked respondents, “If Donald Trump did suspend some laws and constitutional provisions, would that bother you a lot, bother you a little, or not bother you at all?”
A plurality of Republicans in the survey (36%) said it wouldn’t bother them at all if Trump suspended some laws and constitutional provisions, while an additional 34% said it would only bother them “a little” if the president took such a step.
Alas, we can keep going. An Associated Press poll from last year, for example, found 57% of Republicans saying it’d be a good thing if Trump were able to act “without waiting for Congress and the courts.” An Ipsos/Reuters poll from around the same time found 52% of Republicans agreeing that Americans need “a strong president who should be allowed to rule without too much interference from courts and Congress.”
That was followed by an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll that asked respondents whether they agreed that conditions in the U.S. have deteriorated to the point that “we need a leader who is willing to break some rules to set things right.” Among Republicans, a 56% majority endorsed the idea.
There’s been a lot of discussion of late about Trump’s hostility to democracy and his embrace of an authoritarian vision. What’s less appreciated is how warmly rank-and-file Republican voters have embraced related attitudes.
The late Supreme Court Justice David Souter maintained a low public profile after retiring from the high court in 2009, but as longtime readers might recall, he delivered some memorable remarks in New Hampshire in 2012 about his broader political fears.
“I think some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are partly a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function,” Souter said. “It is a product of civic ignorance.” After quoting Benjamin Franklin’s admonition about democracy struggling to survive “too much ignorance,” the retired justice added, “I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion. I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military, as has happened in some of the places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough … some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell.” Souter concluded, “If we know who is responsible, I have enough faith in the American people to demand performance from those responsible. If we don’t know, we will stay away from the polls. We will not demand it. And the day will come when somebody will come forward, and we and the government will in effect say, ‘Take the ball and run with it. Do what you have to do.’ That is the way democracy dies. And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.” It is a message more a third of the Republican electorate apparently needs to hear, consider and take seriously. This post updates our related earlier coverage. CORRECTION (September 16, 2025, 10:50 a.m. ET): The third paragraph misstated liberals’ attitudes, as reflected in the Fox News poll, and the above text has been corrected.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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