Living In The Florida County That Became A Breeding Ground For Capitol Rioters

[Nevilledog]

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Ronald Brownstein
@RonBrownstein
Powerful, chilling, revealing reporting from the heart of FL Trump country: "About 20 right-wing, anti-mask protesters gathered outside her family’s house, haranguing her & her daughter. One protester even went out of the way to cough in Jenkins’ face."

Living In The Florida County That Became A Breeding Ground For Capitol Rioters
Seven residents of Brevard County — where cruelty and violence are fixtures of "Make America Great Again" politics — have been arrested since Jan. 6, 2021.
huffpost.com
1:00 PM · Jan 10, 2022

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brevard-county-florida-capitol-rioters-maga-politics_n_61d75b5fe4b0bb04a6425e0d

Brevard County, Florida, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the SpaceX project, typically makes headlines for sending people beyond Earth. Recently, however, it has drawn attention for a different reason: the number of residents it sent to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

Federal authorities have accused seven Space Coast locals of taking part in the historic attack on the U.S. Capitol, giving Brevard County the dubious distinction of having the sixth-highest number of people arrested in the riot investigation in the country, according to a George Washington University analysis. (The top five counties represent major urban areas: Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and Seattle.)

Among those arrested were a high school teacher who coached the football team; a pastor at a local church; his son, the church’s vice president; a parishioner at the church; and an Army veteran who belonged to the far-right militia the Oath Keepers.

Why do so many of the rioters hail from this coastal region east of Orlando? In the year since the Capitol riot, academics have studied data to divine why places like Brevard County were such hotspots — an effort to better understand the underlying social conditions driving conservative Americans toward violent insurrectionism.

*snip*

[DURHAM D]

1. My own sibling was normal until he

retired and moved to Florida. His own children stopped talking to him.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

Brevard is home to a group of bellicose Republicans — all of whom have embraced former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — who in recent years have targeted their political opponents with a particularly vile and vindictive mix of harassment and mendacity. The result has been incidents of alleged violence, vandalism, intimidation and even a false report of child abuse.

In this coterie are a sheriff with extensive ties to the extremist constitutional sheriffs movement; a state representative who may have created a website to falsely accuse two of his enemies of having an affair; a county commissioner who has advocated that a local Democratic official get an abortion so that her “litter” wouldn’t be a “scourge on humanity”; a mayor who bragged about stockpiling weapons to use against Democrats; and a U.S. congressman who recently said “Let’s go, Brandon” — a euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden” — on the House floor.

[Baked Potato]

3. Brevard County has a huge amount of defense contractors.

They love their government money and the companies probably tell their workers to vote Rep or they will lose their jobs.

I had a neighbor once who worked for a major defense contractor and he was told many times by uppers to vote R to keep the gravy train going.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Welcome to my home.

I am really looking forward to retirement and getting the hell away from here.

[Nevilledog]

5. Hope that's soon.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Sadly not soon enough.

In the meantime, there is always the remote hope of a winning lottery ticket.

[rso]

7. Brevard

Fortunately, you don’t have to drive too far south to get to the democratic stronghold of Palm Beach County, and of course Broward and Miami-Dade further south.