I don't know about you, but I find this chart very troubling. A democracy cannot exist without a free press, and yet more than four out of ten Republicans (41%) think it is appropriate for a politician to body slam a member of the media (as a GOP candidate for Congress did in Montana), and 42% of Trump voters agree. Less than half of both those groups say body slamming a reporter is inappropriate.
Understand that we are talking about a criminal act -- assault (and if the reporter is seriously injured by the body slam, the charge could even be a felony). How can any decent person believe this is appropriate in a democracy? It shows just how far out of the mainstream (how extreme) the modern version of the Republican Party has become.
The chart reflects the results of a new Public Policy Polling survey -- done between June 9th and 11th of a random national sample of 811 registered voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.
