About 28% of voters so alienated with government think 'soon be necessary to take up arms,' survey

More than one-in-four U.S. voters are so alienated from their government that they believe it may "soon be necessary to take up arms" against it, according to a new survey.

Twenty-eight percent of the 1,000 registered U.S. voter in the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics survey released Thursday agreed and said yes to the question.

In a partisan breakdown, one-in-three Republicans and Independent voters held that view, compared to one-in-five Democrats, the survey also found.

The finding comes amid the televised Democrat-led House committee’s hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, which has focused in large part on whether former President Trump and members of his inner circle helped incite the riot. 

The survey was led by Republican pollster Neil Newhouse and Democratic pollster Joel Benenson.

The institute said the survey was designed to "probe polarization and its relationship to the news sources upon which Americans rely in a fractionated media environment."

"The portrait that it paints reveals not only the growing divides we have witnessed in recent years but strong sentiments that the majority of media outlets contribute to these divisions by intentionally misleading their audiences to promote a political point of view," the institute also said.

On the issue of new sources, CNN was rated by 47% of respondents as making "a good faith effort to report the news," while 41% said the cable network intentionally tries "to mislead their viewers to persuade people to take a political point of view." 

Only about one-in-three surveyed indicated the Fox News Network passed on the "good faith" test, the survey also found.