Dr. Jelani Ince is a 2025-2026 PRRI Public Fellow focusing on racial justice and white supremacy. He is also an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington.
Protest has long been part of the American project, from the Boston Tea Party and colonial resistance to British rule, to abolitionist organizing, labor uprisings, women’s suffrage campaigns, civil rights marches, and contemporary demonstrations for racial justice. Across U.S. history, Americans have repeatedly turned to collective action to challenge government authority, demand redress, and press for a different vision of the nation’s future. Protest is therefore not the province of any one political group; it is a longstanding democratic tool used by people across the political spectrum to contest power and shape public life. This Spotlight Analysis examines Americans’ attitudes toward protests, including views about speaking out against unfair government treatment, and President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon individuals convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The past decade has underscored the central role that protest continues to play in American political life. During and after the first Trump administration, the United States experienced a series of large-scale demonstrations organized around a wide range of issues and political perspectives. Millions participated in the Women’s March following Trump’s inauguration in 2017, while protests against immigration policies, demonstrations for racial justice following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and rallies challenging COVID-19 restrictions all drew substantial public attention.
Among the most polarizing events of his tenure was the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The episode brought into sharp relief a longstanding tension in American civic life: Protest is often treated as a vital democratic practice, yet some causes and groups are more readily recognized as legitimate participants than others in that tradition.
Views on Protest in General
Public attitudes about protest matter because they reveal whether Americans see dissent as a threat to social order or as a necessary part of democracy. One way to measure this is to ask whether people think protesting government mistreatment improves the country. PRRI’s late 2025 survey addressed this directly with the following question: “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? When Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government, it always makes our country better.”
Over two-thirds of Americans (68%) agreed that “when Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government, it always makes our country better,” including majorities of both Democrats (82%) and Republicans (56%), compared with 29% who disagreed. Importantly, agreement increased since 2015 (63%) when the question was first asked, although trends differ by party. Among Democrats, agreement increased substantially from 65% in 2015 to 82% in 2025, while among Republicans, it declined from 61% to 56% over the same period. This suggests that support for protest remains widespread overall but has become increasingly polarized along partisan lines. In other words, most Americans appear to view public dissent as a legitimate and constructive response to unfair government treatment rather than as a disruption to civic order, including a majority of Republicans.
There were also noticeable differences by religious affiliation. A solid majority of non-Christians (74%) agreed that “when Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government, it always makes our country better,” compared with 63% of white Christians who agreed. Differences were also evident among those who identified as Christian nationalists: 54% of Adherents agreed with the statement, compared with 83% of Rejecters. Taken together, these findings suggest that attitudes toward protest vary not only by religion, but also by broader political and cultural worldviews. The political context may partially help explain these patterns, especially given the strong support that white Christians have given Trump in recent presidential elections.
Views on Trump’s Decision to Pardon January 6 Protesters
Beyond asking how people feel about protest behavior, it is also important to examine when people believe exceptions to punishment are justified in politically charged cases. To explore this question, respondents were asked whether they favored or opposed pardons for people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The same PRRI survey asked Americans about the extent to which they favor or oppose “President Trump’s pardoning of over 1,500 people convicted for their role in the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Six in ten white Americans (60%) opposed the pardoning, compared with higher shares of Black Americans (84%), Asian American and Pacific Islanders (81%), Hispanic Americans (75%), and multiracial Americans (73%), as well as two-thirds of men (65%) and women (69%). These results suggest that opposition to the pardoning was broad across race and gender, with especially strong opposition among Black Americans. The relatively small difference between men and women indicates that racial identity mattered in different, or complementary, ways than gender in shaping views on the pardoning. Taken together, the findings point to a shared sense of disapproval that cuts across demographic groups.
Across the country, Americans have mobilized around immigration enforcement, federal workforce reductions, government spending, tariffs, and the expanding use of executive authority, while supporters of the current administration have organized in defense of these policies. The visibility of these competing protests highlights both the vitality of public participation and the depth of political disagreement in the United States. Yet, protest prominence does not necessarily indicate broad public support.
Americans do not always agree on which issues warrant protest or whether particular demonstrations are justified, making it important to understand when there is consensus — and where there are sharp divisions — over what issues are worth protesting. In short, Americans converge in viewing protest as a legitimate democratic practice, but they diverge sharply in the causes they consider justified. Protest might still be a democratic ideal in the country, but its legitimacy depends on who is protesting and why.
