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

[Nevilledog]

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Glenn Kessler
@GlennKesslerWP
Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds
Hundreds of people in a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol on Jan. 6. The political scientist Robert Pape set out to find what motivated them.
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 produce insurrectionists.
nytimes.com
10:52 AM · Apr 6, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/capitol-riot-study.html

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.”

*snip*

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. One of these days, researchers will finally accept how much racism drives every damn thing.

[Treefrog]

9. Of course it does. But it's not just white people guilty of it.

Humans are faulty creatures, and this is one of the worst faults in my opinion.

Edit to add, I think misogyny is every bit as widespread.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. Yeah, I should've said "white supremacy" instead of racism and added "in this country" at the end of

the one-liner.

[Walleye]

2. So it is about race. Why are so many afraid to say so?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Because then we'd have to work hard to dismantle white supremacy, instead of just reforming it.

[Walleye]

12. Exactly. And first, they would have to admit to it

[kysrsoze]

3. Of course white power is all that matters to these assholes.

[ret5hd]

4. Doesn't this type of reaction...

give at least a tacit acknowledgement that “Yes, here in the USA we DO treat minorities differently...and not in a good way.”

Seems to me it does.

[snowybirdie]

5. Got a rtumpster email

the other day. I deleted it. This guy is a very financially successful old white male who sounds terrified.
Supposedly attributed to Franklin Graham speech....

“The American dream ended " The first term of Joe Biden has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of
> > > > > mankind

I have to agree with the findings of this report.

[Dawson Leery]

14. The "white Christian males"

raped the world for hundreds of years for their own benefit.

England should give back the crown jewels they stole from India.

[Baked Potato]

6. They need help too, but their overlords have taught them

that to ask for help lowers one to “minority” status. To ask for help means one has failed oneself, one’s family, and one’s community.

They are crying out for relief in the only way they know—In violent demands.

They are not unified in anything other than their hatred and jealousy of the “others.” They want help and to be loved and accepted, but can’t show those emotions because they have been conditioned that emotions are weakness. And, weakness is failure.

[roamer65]

7. If the Repukes steal power again, they will attempt a repeat of apartheid South Africa.

Mark my words.

Fascist white minority rule.

[WyattKansas]

8. I'm a middle aged white male and I am livid at what Republicans have done to...

Fuck me over my whole life and make my life a hell of a lot harder!

I want ALL Republicans to spontaneously combust into an extremely slow burn. Not just national politicians, but State and Local as well, along with all of their asshole voters... Yes, every fucking one of them!

Harsh you say?

Nonsense, not one of them ever cared about the misery they chose to put me through by stabbing me in the back and twisting their knives with their death and destruction policies.

[Dawson Leery]

13. White middle class persons...

Those with something, (not poor or rich) dear losing what they have.

This is nothing new.