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

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

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!”

“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.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fears-of-white-people-losing-out-permeate-capitol-rioters-towns-study-finds/ar-BB1fmc7V

Oh FFS

[AZProgressive]

1. People suffering because of economic reasons can't afford to go to Washington DC

Last edited Tue Apr 6, 2021, 12:43 PM - Edit history (1)

Unless they already live there.

[maxsolomon]

2. The RWNM has fed xenophobia and racial resentment for decades.

Essentially unchecked.

The wealthy know that the finger of blame must be pointed, and if they don't take the initiative, it will be pointed at them. Thus it has always been.

[Moostache]

3. FUD and FOMO

The same things that motivate people to do all kinds of irrational and/or selfish things.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
Fear Of Missing Out

Both revolve around the emotion of FEAR - the easiest human emotion to manipulate and control people with, next to its more extreme cousin HATE.

The harder emotions are clearly HOPE and LOVE. These are more intrinsic and internally focused emotions. HOPE means that you are focused on the unknown future more than the known past. You are looking to possibilities and not assignment of blame. You are looking to improve everyone's future state, not protecting only your current state.

LOVE is the central mature human emotion. But true love requires a abandonment of self, a self-less devotion to others (be they one or many).

Given the option of someone to blame or someone to work with...the easy choice is the one where individuals can absolve themselves or their posterity of responsibility and assign blame to the "other". The hard choice, the one that GREAT men embrace - from Washington to Lincoln to FDR - is the one where they COULD seize power and use it for personal enrichment or enshrinement as a dictator, yet they CHOOSE to do otherwise.

MAGAts are VERY easy to understand in this paradigm...

[cilla4progress]

8. Everything comes down to EGO.

Pape's results ring true for me.

And you know what: POC likely WILL "replace" us whites, if demographic projections bear out, or at least come closer.

What is wrong with this?

I've been replaced in jobs by Latina workers partly because of the clientele we served. Was it hard and painful? Yes. But I also started out life steps ahead due to inherited wealth, and I recovered. In fact, it pushed me to branch out professionally, and ultimately, to upgrade my education and credential.

I dream of a muticultural, multi-generational rainbow of a country with diverse flavors, music, and languages, living together in peace and appreciation. It's called Canada.* But it could be us, too! 🙂

*And yes, I know nowhere is perfect

[Hortensis]

11. :) No, they won't "replace" white people. They'll replace themselves though,

at least until childbearing rates drop below replacement levels, as eventually happens, but that's too much for those whose anxiety is detached from reality.

Btw and fwiw, whites are @73-75% of all Americans, close to 3/4, and the makeup of the Democratic Party is similar. The Hispanic demo is based on identification with a background of the Spanish language, not race. Latinos identify by geographic origin, at least the most recent, in Latin America. Many American Hispanics and Latinos are white but further identify by culture.

[magicarpet]

4. The fear machine of fascists has done its job nicely,...

.... they cranked up the hate and fear that white privilege had seen its best day but was quickly passing and becoming obsolete. Whites had better stand up and fight or their advantages over "the others" would soon disappear.

[SoonerPride]

5. It means they also know minorities get fucked over

And they fear they are becoming the minority.

Instead, they should work to make sure everyone is giving fair treatment that way when white is no longer the dominant ethnic caste they won't have fear of being fucked over. But that of course is not how they want the world to work.

They want "those people" to be oppressed and enjoy their privilege.

[gratuitous]

6. They're worried about being treated like a minority? Is that bad?

What, are minorities historically treated badly in this country or something?

Yeah, when you've become accustomed to your unearned perch of privilege, equality can look like a big step down. At least this puts the lie to that "economically anxious" excuse for white supremacists.

[modrepub]

7. Fear of Death?

Some of this may be due to the fear of loosing ones position (due to competition from newcomers). But I wonder if a lot of this has to do with people's inability to process and accept their impending doom.

Change is an eternal process; we are all constantly being recycled/replaced. Maybe some folks just can't accept or envision a world without them physically in it. Trying to control it well into the future may give them some sense that they are still "here" even when they're gone.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. White supremacy is a hell of a drug.

[Johnny2X2X]

10. It's taken decades to create this alternative reality they live in

I am a middle aged white male. For me, the thought that my whiteness or my sex is somehow a hinderance to me is absurd.

Maybe it's just being exposed to a wider variety of people, maybe I'm just more empathetic, but I understand that minorities and women have many many more obstacles and barriers to overcome in their lives than I do just because I am a white male. Doesn't mean I haven't had my own obstacles, doesn't mean I haven't worked hard, just means that I appreciate that I overcame my own obstacles with hard work and am very glad there wasn't other obstacles for things I couldn't control in front of me.

To create a fantasyland where the most privileged race and the most privileged sex are the victims takes an extreme amount of propaganda over decades.

Recognizing that privilege allows you to try to work to be part of the solution to inequality, bias, sexism, and racism (and a whole bunch of other isms and phobias too).

So these people play the victim well, but it's just a play, they're anything but victims.

[Claire Oh Nette]

12. Seems to me if minorities had it so great...

...then whites would be happy to get all the advantages and windfalls of being in the minority.

Or they've finally realized the Golden Rule applies to them, as well. Had they not treated minorities like shit, they'd not be afraid.