Nearly half of Americans view Trump as 'threat' to First Amendment: poll
Almost half of Americans believe former President Donald Trump is a “threat” to the First Amendment, while a majority says he or Vice President Kamala Harris will be a “protector” of those rights.
The Freedom Forum released a report earlier this week titled “Where America Stands” based on a survey of Americans' opinions of the First Amendment.
According to the report, 49% of respondents said they believe Trump is either “a strong threat” or “somewhat of a threat” to the First Amendment, while 37% said Harris is either “a strong threat” or “somewhat of a threat.”
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Likewise, just 36% of respondents believed Trump would be a “protector” of the First Amendment if reelected, while only 42% said Harris would be a “protector” of those rights if elected president.
Data for the report was drawn from an online survey conducted July 29 to Aug. 4, with a sample space of 820 Americans aged 16 and older, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
The report also found that while 93% of Americans considered the First Amendment “vital,” support for that part of the United States Constitution was in decline compared to four years ago.
According to the report, 58% of respondents said they would support ratifying the First Amendment today, which is a drop from four years ago when 63% responded the same.
The Freedom Forum expressed concern over how 42% of respondents believed that the First Amendment should not protect “hate speech,” with millennials being more likely than baby boomers to believe that the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees” (17% vs. 10%).
“More than a third of Americans say that preventing hate speech is more important than preserving free speech. Four in ten say such speech should not be protected,” noted the report with concern.
“While not strictly a First Amendment issue, most Americans say they don’t feel they can speak freely about controversial topics, for fear of job loss, a violent response, perceptions about them or tensions with friends and family.”
In 2022, Trump garnered controversy when he posted to Truth Social that he wanted to suspend the rules of the Constitution to fight what he claimed was a stolen 2020 election.
"A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," wrote Trump at the time.
Last December, in an interview with Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity, Trump light-heartedly remarked that, if reelected president, he would be a “dictator” on “day one” in order to close the Southern border and expand oil drilling, but then added “after that, I’m not a dictator” after he was explicitly asked if he would be a "dictator."
Last month, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released the results of a survey of 1,000 Americans, which found that 53% of respondents believed that the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”
