Resist Stereotyping Insurrectionists More Likely To Be Your Neighbors Than Not: The Atlantic

[appalachiablue]

'Resist the urge to stereotype insurrectionists; they're more likely to be your neighbors than not.' Daily Kos, Feb. 2, '21.
- Excerpts -

In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, it may be tempting to seek some sort of solace in the fact that the actual number of rioters was comparatively small. That those who participated included members of prominent far-right, neo-Nazis, and militia groups who had been well-primed in advance for such an event. It might be soothing to know that a concerted national crackdown on domestic terrorism has been launched by federal law enforcement. It might be easy to hope that this fight—an effort deliberately de-emphasized by the Trump administration—will have some effect on curtailing similar atrocities in the future.

All of these things are true, but from a broader standpoint they may be irrelevant. University of Chicago professor Robert Pape and research associate Keven Ruby, writing for The Atlantic, report that the emerging portraits of the Capitol insurrectionists do not correlate with what many assumed early on about this crowd. In fact, the vast majority of those who participated in the Jan. 6 events were not members of or even loosely affiliated with any known right-wing group, but were far more likely to fall within the category of what we would call “ordinary” citizens.

In other words, for many Americans, the insurrectionists were your next door neighbors.

- "Because a number of the rioters prominently displayed symbols of right-wing militias, for instance, some experts called for a crackdown on such groups. Violence organized and carried out by far-right militant organizations is disturbing, but it at least falls into a category familiar to law enforcement and the general public. However, a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the Capitol riot suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which more “normal” Trump supporters—middle-class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right—joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election." -

Pape and Ruby’s group, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, has worked for over a decade to identify the demographic and social patterns of both foreign and domestic terrorists, examining employment and educational characteristics (among other factors) of those people known to ally or affiliate themselves with violent terrorist ideologies. Since Jan. 6, the Center has collected similar data on all of those thus far who have been arrested in connection with the Capitol riots, specifically those who were known to have broken into the Capitol building itself or to have deliberately broken through barriers to access the Capitol structure. They then compared the data collected on these insurrectionists with similar profile data of record through court filings, arrest records, and affidavits, as well as media data compiled for people arrested for right-wing violence over the past five years.

“The overwhelming reason for action, cited again and again in court documents, was that arrestees were following Trump’s orders to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the presidential-election winner"..

"What’s clear is that the Capitol riot revealed a new force in American politics—not merely a mix of right-wing organizations, but a broader mass political movement that has violence at its core and draws strength even from places where Trump supporters are in the minority."...

Read More,

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/2/2013467/-Resist-the-urge-to-stereotype-insurrectionists-they-re-more-likely-to-be-your-neighbors-than-not
________________

*'The Capitol Rioters Aren't Like Other Extremists,' The Atlantic, Feb. 2021. We analyzed 193 people arrested in connection with the January 6 riot—and found a new kind of American radicalism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/

..Third, the demographic profile of the suspected Capitol rioters is different from that of past right-wing extremists. The average age of the arrestees we studied is 40. Two-thirds are 35 or older, and 40 percent are business owners or hold white-collar jobs. Unlike the stereotypical extremist, many of the alleged participants in the Capitol riot have a lot to lose.
They work as CEOs, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, IT specialists, and accountants. Strikingly, court documents indicate that only 9 percent are unemployed. Of the earlier far-right-extremist suspects we studied, 61 percent were under 35, 25 percent were unemployed, and almost none worked in white-collar occupations...

[chia]

1. Guess you could say the same thing about the Civil War. I'll continue to stereotype them as MAGA

who thought they were entitled to do what they did and walk away without consequences.

[appalachiablue]

3. The larger umbrella is Maga Trump supporters. As noted,

the researchers didn't elaborate on the influence of social media in radicalization. Organized extremist groups on the right have also been featured in mainstream media for several years, at Charlottesville and more. Like social media platforms, they have an identifiable role in the move in this direction.

[Cartoonist]

2. If one of them is my neighbor

Then I'm calling the FBI

[frazzled]

4. Believing the election was stolen is not "ordinary"

If these were my neighbors, I would not call them ordinary citizens. I’d call them deluded and potentially dangerous.

Or is this the new “ordinary” were being asked to accept?

[jrthin]

5. They could be my neighbor and also an insurrectionist.

Being my or a neighbor shouldn't be a protection factor. I fail to understand the writer's delineation. All people involved in the insurrections whether they be lawyer, doctor, other professional, next door neighbor should be judged by their action, not by the stereotype (in this case nice/normal) the writer gives to these people.

[appalachiablue]

6. What is prominent for me isn't that they're 'normal.'

It's when around 40% of the population thinks this way and has a chance at political control, and representative democracy continues to be assaulted, what happens- violence, civil war, secession?

[Dustlawyer]

9. The thing is, they are not normal.

They are RW cult members programmed by decades of RW media following their programming. They are saturated daily with nothing but negative propaganda telling them that liberals are out to destroy the country. They were kept angry and afraid so that they would reliably vote against their interests.

The problem is that this Frankenstein monster TPTB created has gotten loose from their controllers and they cannot reign them in if they wanted to. Now they are turning against Fox and the Republican Party.

[appalachiablue]

13. The Fairness Doctrine, enacted post WWII in 1949

was intended to curb the power of propaganda in broadcast media which had a demonstrable role in the Nazi Holocaust. Reagan ended it in 1986 and look where we are.

These aren't 'normal' people. As we know, they are brainwashed, motivated and violent. They also constitute a large segment of the population.

Trying to make them reason, reject destructive propaganda and support democratic institutions is the enormous challenge. If this cult isn't prevented from growing larger, deeper and more powerful, the American democratic republic could end.

[jrthin]

11. Excellent point and take away.

[old guy]

7. Many of my neighbors would have attended,

if the insurrection had been closer to home.

[Squinch]

8. They're all RepubliQans.

[DinahMoeHum]

12. RepubliQAnons.

[Midnight Writer]

10. They are my neighbors and they are nuts. (My precinct voted Trump by a margin of 47%)

If you think I am "stereotyping", come on out and talk to these folks. You'll see.

[stillcool]

14. I hear my Grandparents telling me...

that the television is going to rot my brain. They would flip right the eff out if they got a load of this.

[Nitram]

15. No, not my neighbors. They didn't put up Trump signs.

[MyMission]

16. My neighbors blue line flag went missing before 1/6

And it was back a week after that. It was hanging askew for days before it went missing.
But since it was gone during the insurrection, it made me wonder if it went to DC with my neighbor. I don't know this neighbor, drive by their house which is down the road from me.

Also, I work in an Army Navy store. On 1/4 a guy came in to buy woodland camo pants and shirt, stating he was heading to DC with some friends and they were all dressing in camo. I knew he was going to the rally. I suspect a number of locals went to DC, but I haven't seen anyone from my town arrested yet. I've been following the arrests on several websites. My area is crawling with rethugs.

[Skittles]

17. I have zero problem believing they are my fucking neighbors

Trump-humping Central