New study looks at the demographics of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol

[Maurice Morizovich]

Army of the Willfully Stupid. America, we are nowhere near being out of the woods yet!

[Xipe Totec]

1. Shouldn't the word be demongraphics? nt

[dweller]

2. welcome to DU !

✌🏻

[OhZone]

3. We need to teach people not to believe a -

troll on one of the chans.

[Oldem]

4. If this political scientist is correct, and I see no reason to question him,

we have a problem I don't think we're close to understanding. It's easy to understand--or think we understand--Proud Boys: they're nuts and cultists, we tell ourselves. We just destroy the group. But the neighbor screaming at you because you have a Biden sign in your lawn may own an insurance agency in your town. He might teach school in your district. If these are the guys drinking the Kool-Aid and taking violent action, well, I'm reminded of Pogo's great philosophical dictum: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

[brush]

5. Elephant in the room question left unanswered: 99% or 95% or 93% white?

Come on interviewer and researcher. Ya gotta bring that up.

[marked50]

6. The one thing that seems to be left out of this analysis

is the financial ability of those insurrectionists who were at the site. The typical right-wingers that did not show up may have not had the ability to attend the event. I think that this is something that needs to be looked at, not only it's direct concern of people that may have affluence (maybe not greatly), but funding ability or access too such.

[Warpy]

7. The age of the people in that crowd didn't surprise me in the least

The social contract was discarded decades ago, the American Dream is a nightmare, and even people who should be middle class and even upper middle class have been left behind by wages that have fallen in purchasing power for decades while government services, including state universities for their children, have been eliminated, starved for funding, and become prohibitively expensive even if they still exist. America is sick and tired of being sick and tired and these are just people who fell for the authoritarians and their simple solutions to complex issues.

[cstanleytech]

8. Its not that wages have fallen in purchasing power it is that the wages have been stagnant.

Had they not been stagnant the minimum wage people would be earning would be about 23 to 24 dollars an hour.

[Warpy]

10. Stagnant wages + inflation equal a fall in purchasing power

I love these Republicans testifying against the minimum wage increase because, golly heck, they were able to work their way through school on the minimum wage in the early 70s.

Meanwhile, the cost of a state university has gone up to eleven times what it was, while the minimum wage has barely doubled.

I think you have to be congenitally unable to do basic math in order to be a Republican.

[amcgrath]

9. I sincerely hope this research isn't as flawed as it sounds?

From what they’ve stated, it appears they have looked at a demographic that has already been through several filters.
They looked at a group of people who could - at relatively short notice, book and pay for hotels in DC They have studied a group that did not have to be at work - and a group for whom childcare wasn’t a problem.

Which means they are likely an older group, without kids who are unable to fend for themselves for a weekend. It makes it more likely that they are white collar, because people who work in offices are more able to work remotely - preserving income and making working remotely more possible.
And if you are white collar and working in an office, you are more likely to live in an urban rather than rural area, which is therefore more likely to be a place where Biden won.

For every middle aged estate agent or bank employer with teenage children who could stay home alone, there are probably thousands of people working blue collar jobs, with nothing in the bank and kids who need minding.
Perhaps one other figure they should consider is that the 800 people who showed up, are the number of people who could make the trip, out of the 70 million who voted for Trump. 1 out of every 1,250.

[niyad]

11. Welcome to our DU family.

[Martin68]

12. My reaction is that the organized groups like the Proud Boys and III%ers led the attack, and

there was a larger group of unaffiliated older conservatives who have been radicalized by internet conspiracy theories, who attended the rally, listened to Trump's speech, and were swept along in the march to invade the Capitol. Does this analysis look at who committed the most egregious violence and ransacked the offices of Representatives and Senators?

[Quixote1818]

13. It's actually exactly what I expected. Yes, racist business owners and QAnon members

who come from money and privilege got caught up in the Trump cult. What is so surprising about this?