Over 80% of Americans across party lines agree that exercising free speech involves dealing with disagreements — but that this should never lead to calls for violence.
That’s according to a new survey by YouGov, highlighting that the American people understand the realities of free expression and the importance of civil discourse.
But not all the data are encouraging.
Though eight in 10 respondents said we should discourage calls to violence, about one in 10 said they weren’t sure — and another one in 10 actually disagreed.
Also, roughly 78% of Americans believe freedom of speech doesn’t include freedom from consequences — including 76% of Republicans, up 16 points from 2022, and 86% of Democrats. That said, it’s difficult to know what to make of this without knowing whether respondents took “consequences” as referring to the court of public opinion or the iron fist of the state. After all, people have every right to judge each other for the things they say but the government cannot punish speech based on viewpoint.
Reflecting recent findings by FIRE’s National Speech Index, the survey also reveals that 54% of respondents agree that the government is the biggest threat to free speech, up from 45% in YouGov’s 2022 survey. While Republican sentiment on this question has fallen over that period from 69% to 60%, Democrats have gone from 28% to 48%.
Even with the nine-point drop among Republicans and 20-point increase among Democrats, the former remain far more likely to view the government as the main threat to free speech.
On the other hand, the NSI found that 67% of conservatives and 83% of very conservative Americans have “a lot” or total confidence in President Donald Trump to protect their First Amendment rights, compared to only 11% of liberals and 12% of very liberal Americans.
But here’s a spot of good news. That same 2022 survey found that just below one-third of Americans believed limiting speech for some can expand free speech for all, including 24% of Republicans and a whopping 40% of Democrats. This year, however, while the figure for Republicans only fell by 2 percentage points, the percentage for Democrats dropped by an encouraging 12 points.
Still, compared to Republicans and the general population, Democrats are significantly more censorial when it comes to this question.
In line with this, the NSI results showed that 52% of conservatives but only 45% of liberals agree that “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.” Though here again, more information would be helpful in order to understand what specific limitations to free speech Democrats and Republicans have in mind.
As the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau has said, “When you have something to say, there is always someone somewhere with a very good reason to stop you from saying it.”
But of course, that doesn’t mean they should.
