Interesting article at the NYT.
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 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.”
2 comments:
I am not a social scientist or a researcher, but that was my opinion before reading this: white folks, especially those of lesser economic means, are afraid of the black, and especially, brown man coming for their jobs. They have felt threatened.
So, an old story, presented in new media. Kind of reassuring in one way, terrifying in another. Personally, I think the most danger comes from the semi-organized militias that are capable of fully arming themselves. When they get together, as they seem to have coordinated in the insurrection, they become the basis of an army capable of actually overthrowing a government. Hitler, Stalin, etc. If the army and police are full of these types we are in desperate trouble.
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