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Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds

Counties with the most significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population were the most likely to be homes to people who stormed the Capitol.

When the political scientist Robert Pape began studying the issues that motivated the 380 or so people arrested in connection with the attack against the Capitol on Jan. 6, he expected to find that the rioters were driven to violence by the lingering effects of the 2008 Great Recession.

But instead he found something very different: Most of the people who took part in the assault came from places, his polling and demographic data showed, that were awash in fears that the rights of minorities and immigrants were crowding out the rights of white people in American politics and culture.

If Mr. Pape’s initial conclusions — published on Tuesday in The Washington Post — hold true, they would suggest that the Capitol attack has historical echoes reaching back to before the Civil War, he said in an interview over the weekend. In the shorter term, he added, the study would appear to connect Jan. 6 not only to the once-fringe right-wing theory called the Great Replacement, which holds that minorities and immigrants are seeking to take over the country, but also to events like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 where crowds of white men marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”

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by Anonymousreply 24April 7, 2021 10:16 PM

“If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Mr. Pape said. “You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”

One fact stood out in Mr. Pape’s study, conducted with the help of researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a think tank he runs at the University of Chicago. Counties with the most significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists. This finding held true, Mr. Pape determined, even when controlling for population size, distance to Washington, unemployment rate and urban or rural location.

Law enforcement officials have said 800 to 1,000 people entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, and prosecutors have spent the past three months tracking down many of them in what they have described as one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history. In recent court filings, the government has hinted that more than 400 people may ultimately face charges, including illegal entry, assault of police officers and the obstruction of the official business of Congress.

In his study, Mr. Pape determined that only about 10 percent of those charged were members of established far-right organizations like the Oath Keepers militia or the nationalist extremist group the Proud Boys. But unlike other analysts who have made similar findings, Mr. Pape has argued that the remaining 90 percent of the “ordinary” rioters are part of a still congealing mass movement on the right that has shown itself willing to put “violence at its core.”

Other mass movements have emerged, he said, in response to large-scale cultural change. In the 1840s and ’50s, for example, the Know Nothing Party, a group of nativist Protestants, was formed in response to huge waves of largely Irish Catholic immigration to the country. After World War I, he added, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a revival prompted in part by the arrival of Italians and the first stirrings of the so-called Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North.

by Anonymousreply 1April 7, 2021 2:48 PM

I'm shocked. SHOCKED.

by Anonymousreply 2April 7, 2021 2:48 PM

In an effort to determine why the mob that formed on Jan. 6 turned violent, Mr. Pape compared events that day with two previous pro-Trump rallies in Washington, on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12. While police records show some indications of street fighting after the first two gatherings, Mr. Pape said, the number of arrests were fewer and the charges less serious than on Jan. 6. The records also show that those arrested in November and December largely lived within an hour of Washington while most of those arrested in January came from considerably farther away.

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5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Brahms Continue reading the main story The difference at the rallies was former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Pape said. Mr. Trump promoted the Jan. 6 rally in advance, saying it would be “wild” and driving up attendance, Mr. Pape said. He then encouraged the mob to march on the Capitol in an effort to “show strength.”

Mr. Pape said he worried that a similar mob could be summoned again by a leader like Mr. Trump. After all, he suggested, as the country continues moving toward becoming a majority-minority nation and right-wing media outlets continue to stoke fear about the Great Replacement, the racial and cultural anxieties that lay beneath the riot at the Capitol are not going away.

“If all of this is really rooted in the politics of social change, then we have to realize that it’s not going to be solved — or solved alone — by law enforcement agencies,” Mr. Pape said. “This is political violence, not just ordinary criminal violence, and it is going to require both additional information and a strategic approach.”

by Anonymousreply 3April 7, 2021 2:48 PM

Mr. Pape, whose career had mostly been focused on international terrorism, used that approach after the Sept. 11 attacks when he created a database of suicide bombers from around the world. His research led to a remarkable discovery: Most of the bombers were secular, not religious, and had killed themselves not out of zealotry, but rather in response to military occupations.

American officials eventually used the findings to persuade some Sunnis in Iraq to break with their religious allies and join the United States in a nationalist movement known as the Anbar Awakening.

Recalling his early work with suicide bombers, Mr. Pape suggested that the country’s understanding of what happened on Jan. 6 was only starting to take shape, much like its understanding of international terrorism slowly grew after Sept. 11.

“We really still are at the beginning stages,” he said.

by Anonymousreply 4April 7, 2021 2:49 PM

And certain types will use Mr Pape’s findings to recruit these crackpots into a nationalist militant movement as well. Civil War’s comin.

by Anonymousreply 5April 7, 2021 2:53 PM

Say it ain’t so! 🤡

by Anonymousreply 6April 7, 2021 2:53 PM

Nothing new here and often these people come from places that, themselves, have not experienced much demographic change. There sort of like suburbanites who expect to be murdered if they venture "downtown"

by Anonymousreply 7April 7, 2021 3:01 PM

[quote]And certain types will use Mr Pape’s findings to recruit these crackpots into a nationalist militant movement as well. Civil War’s comin.

What are we supposed to do, make sure whites are taken care of first and foremost lest they go on another rampage? We're supposed to let people bully the entire country into putting whites first, under threat of violence?

The word for that is "terrorism."

by Anonymousreply 8April 7, 2021 3:03 PM

[quote] His research led to a remarkable discovery: Most of the bombers were secular, not religious, and had killed themselves not out of zealotry, but rather in response to military occupations.

Remarkable in that he thought Muslim terrorists deserved a more nuanced approach in which he could blame American colonialism yet in studying American cities, completely ignores socioeconomic factors in favor of identarian explanations.

by Anonymousreply 9April 7, 2021 3:07 PM

The thing about these reports is that they always make it sound like there's a problem with the rights of non-whites "crowding out" or "usurping" the rights of whites, when the reality is that most of these people are angry when anyone who isn't white gets the SAME rights as whites do.

That makes them FEEL like they're "losing" their own rights, when they aren't. Then you get posts like the one we had last week where some guy said he just knew non-whites got the jobs he applied for and they weren't as good as he, a white man, was, and that's reverse racism and that's why the country is shit now.

by Anonymousreply 10April 7, 2021 3:07 PM

[quote] That makes them FEEL like they're "losing" their own rights, when they aren't.

But they are. It's also true that non-whites never had it as good but that's because they immigrated when there were fewer opportunities for all Americans due to wage stagnation and destruction of entire industries. Rather than deal with this systemic problem, Democrats propose income redistribution which does not address the underlying problem.

by Anonymousreply 11April 7, 2021 3:12 PM

Of course. They were all pious and self-congratulatory about murrican democracy until it no longer served as a tool of middle American white dominance anymore. They’ve turned on a dime and are perfectly happy to WORSHIP a fat doof as dictator for life.

Because what is Q after all but a crackpot religion worshipping Trump as God?

by Anonymousreply 12April 7, 2021 3:34 PM

R12 But they were sold on a lie that illegal immigration would increase American prosperity when that is only true for the wealthy. You are just a stooge of the far left.

by Anonymousreply 13April 7, 2021 3:42 PM

I think it's not just the "white people" angle, but also the christianity/evangelical angle

by Anonymousreply 14April 7, 2021 3:47 PM

[quote]Because what is Q after all but a crackpot religion worshipping Trump as God?

That's pretty much what all that Q insanity is about.

by Anonymousreply 15April 7, 2021 4:28 PM

I live in deep red state Trumplandia. These white folks are the most frightened people I 've ever seen. They are armed to the teeth and believe their lives are in constant danger even in their double wide trailers.

by Anonymousreply 16April 7, 2021 4:56 PM

What is happening is that standard of living has decreased across the board and generations are learning that they are worse off than their parents generation. The arrogant and entitled SOBs in this thread just adopt the corporate line that these poor suckers should be happy living off much less just like all these immigrants. Just acknowledge that the corporate CEOs love to peddle this kind of shit because illegal immigration benefits THEM and their bottom line.

by Anonymousreply 17April 7, 2021 5:42 PM

White people like this are pathetic pieces of shit. They’re lucky minority Americans aren’t seeking revenge... just equality.

by Anonymousreply 18April 7, 2021 6:14 PM

Not surprising. Talk to your extended families. They'll all have anecdotes about the blacks and Hispanics at work not getting married because their wives would lose welfare benefits. Or how they were passed over for a promotion because the place of work need more minorities in higher positions. Or how, with affirmative action, white people have to go to the back of the line after every imaginable minority gets preferential treatment. White people come last. That's the "reality" the Trump base embraces.

by Anonymousreply 19April 7, 2021 7:33 PM

R19 Most of what you write actually happens. Are you saying they are lying?

by Anonymousreply 20April 7, 2021 7:37 PM

The irony is that many black voters share similarities with their white counterparts. Most working class black people are pro gun, anti defund the police, socially conservative, and increasing American infrastructure.

by Anonymousreply 21April 7, 2021 7:39 PM

[quote]They'll all have anecdotes about the blacks and Hispanics at work not getting married because their wives would lose welfare benefits.

Sorry but this is actually quite prevalent in those communities.

by Anonymousreply 22April 7, 2021 8:05 PM

R19 Why do you have the word reality in quotation marks?

by Anonymousreply 23April 7, 2021 8:42 PM

[quote]you get posts like the one we had last week where some guy said he just knew non-whites got the jobs he applied for and they weren't as good as he, a white man, was, and that's reverse racism and that's why the country is shit now.

That thread reminded me how naive I am, I truly had no idea how widespread that kind of thinking is until the 2016 election.

by Anonymousreply 24April 7, 2021 10:16 PM
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