Apparently someone analyzed the Y’all Qaeda Beergut Putsch at the Capitol on January 6th, and it turns out they are predominantly people from communities afraid of minorities taking over. A fear they only have because they know how shitty they have been to minorities for the past 200 years.
Take it away, O-Dub:
I’m so fucking sick of this shit.
Raven
Whoa
Dorothy A. Winsor
I love it when people get actual data that prove we were right
hells littlest angel
It’s such a trauma to see yourself sliding down the scale from wealthy to well-to-do, while the unworthy rise up from dire poverty to poverty.
schrodingers_cat
Let me guess this Pape guy is white with no recent immigrant background.
MisterForkbeard
I just read the Pape linked story. They seem pretty clear that it’s motivated by racism. “Great Replacement Theory” and social media exposure (to racism) are the big factors.
Is the bad twitter reaction because we’re pretending this is “new”, or did I just not understand correctly?
ant
It’s the social order of things. The graduated inequality. They want it maintained. They want the people that they look down on put in place. Obama, H Clinton, K Harris – got too uppity. The ’16 election was to put those people and all their supporters in their place.
This is what motivates conservatives.
MAGA isn’t some vapid meaningless slogan. It has a very specific meaning, and it’s very much on point to what certain people want.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
I think that’s the thing. They’re acting as if Trump supporters acting out of racism rather than economic anxiety is a novel theory. I pointed out that the 6 years Oliver Willis mentioned is a gross underestimate. People were talking about the Tea Party as being the result of economic worries even as they used incredibly racist imagery of Obama.
bbleh
Well, obviously what’s needed here is a little more in-depth reporting on the thoughts and feelings of those evidently anxious people, ideally in an environment where they feel comfortable talking, e.g., over breakfast in a rural Ohio diner at 10 in the morning.
John Cole
@MisterForkbeard:
For me it’s because we already know who they fucking are and they’re the same motherfuckers who were screaming about the muslim president wearing tricorner hats 12 years ago.
Baud
@hells littlest angel:
“If these trends continue…”
hrprogressive
They’ve been “afraid” of not being able to subjugate non-white persons for centuries.
It’s just that only now, a lot of them are openly admitting this is what they want, instead of hiding it behind winks, nods, and Lee-Atwater-isms.
Fuck the white supremacists, loud and clear.
UncleEbeneezer
Surprise, surprise. I remember listening to TWiB episodes in 2015 where some really whacko, white dudes (of course) called in and started ranting about White Genocide!!1! Elon and the crew mocked them mercilessly and it was freaking hilarious. I had no idea, sadly, how commonplace this shit is amongst white people.
bbleh
And although this is double-posting, allow me to recall the words of LBJ lo these 50-odd years ago, who said, “if you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
schrodingers_cat
Allow me to translate what this Pape person said, I said this on Twitter this afternoon
MisterForkbeard
@John Cole: Yeah, that’s definitely true.
I’m all for proving it yet again, since Elite America just really doesn’t want to believe that large parts of Republican support are motivated by White Racism.
But I don’t think I’d be angry at Pape here, other than him saying this particular coalition of insurrectionists is full of people from blue states who are racists. Which, DUH.
Starfish
Can we just not let white journalists cover white supremacist movements because they are too close to the subject and may not be objective the same way that Black journalists were not allowed to cover Black Lives Matter protests?
I mean, I do feel like the latter is wrong, but I also do feel like some of these white journalists identify a little too much with their subjects and write meaningless tripe or stuff to comfort white supremacists. I bet some Black editors could fix this.
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore:
You mean the “Hang in there, Obama” signs with a drawing of a noose weren’t about encouraging Obama during trying times? /s
schrodingers_cat
@Starfish: Yes they see their family or themselves reflected in these insurrectionists and that’s the reason for this wishy washy coverage full of wishful thinking.
Eljai
@MisterForkbeard: I think people may be reacting to the NYT article about his study which begins with this:
I mean, I’m glad he followed the data to come to a different conclusion, but what the hell with that false assumption?
Or, what Roger Moore said.
Jeffro
Oh…this is the thing I posted about a couple’a threads ago…it’s not like Pape is stupid or blind as far as I can tell, but he was operating under the same blessed narrative far too many folks were: that economic anxiety was mostly behind all of this.
Then, he actually did the research and found that what we all (intelligently and astutely) have known to be true for a long time actually *is * empirically true: these are racists, reacting violently to rising numbers of non-white folks in the counties they live in.
I don’t know why Twitter is blowing up about it; I don’t know why we would blow up about them blowing up about it either (other than to take a sad, knowing victory lap if we want). More power to Pape for doing the work and getting it out there.
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh: or King’s version:
But it turns out it works just as well if you’re not poor or hungry at all. The Southern aristocracy loved that situation just as much–it wasn’t just a ruse for them. And Northern whites did too, in their own ways.
Tenar Arha
@MisterForkbeard: Like a few have already said, I think it’s this lede paragraph…
I read that & I just wanted to bang my head on a desk for a while. IOW it starts by assuming economic anxiety. Gobsmacking.
(And because this is the FTFNYT I simultaneously know I can’t assume that that’s what the study actually implies or says, & that the NYT’s words is what will be remembered, not the study’s details, not the obvious racist motivations of those attackers).
ETA to reflect other commentators have pointed to the same paragraph
ant
Arkansas just overrode their governors veto on a hate the trans people bill.
The reason why?
Because Trans people are low on the the social hierarchy list, and they want them put in their place, where nobody cares about them like it used to be.
Republican voters want inequality, with white men on top. They don’t give a fuck about anything else.
Mike in NC
@mrmoshpotato: The fact that dozens of Republican Party officials in several states were busy faxing each other images of Obama with a bone through his nose and eating watermelon, and Michelle dressed up as a ho, was all just a coincidence.
MomSense
@Tenar Arha:
That jumped out at me too.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
You are correct to a certain point. But you left out the racism and misogyny that underlies the whole thing. Apparently, reporters need this spelled out every time, based on the shock and defensiveness they display every time this comes up.
gwangung
@Starfish:
And they didn’t allow Korean speaking Asian American reporters to cove the Atlanta murders.
Yes, this is straight up institutional racism, and I continue to be astonished at how reluctant white people are at even naming it.
MagdaInBlack
@schrodingers_cat: Exactly right.
Just Some Fuckhead
How about those Trump indictments?
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: It was implied since I was restricted by the word limit. But you are right of course.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: Let’s get that whole trash family. Except Barron. He can go to Slovenia with his grandparents after their illegal citizenship gets revoked.
PsiFighter37
Why should they pay reporters to do this kind of research when they could get one of us Juicers to come to the same conclusion more quickly, and throw in a bunch of expletives for good measure?
Tenar Arha
@MomSense: You know what’s sad? There’s a part of me that is astonished every time the supposedly serious press starts from using the WRONGEST assumption. Even 4 years of TFG didn’t convince them to start the story where they should, with the assumption that white supremacy motivated Jan 6. ETA At this point it’s not just bad reporting & editing, it’s the newspapers’ corporate policy.
Anoniminous
To anybody growing up during Jim Crow can tell it’s the same old garbage they peddled then and white people suck that shit up. In 1968 the favorite candidate for white males under 30 was George Wallace as well as rural white Southerners and blue-collar union workers in the North and Midwest. Pretty much el ditto del sameo in 2020 with young white males going for Trump.
gwangung
@Tenar Arha: I’m going to go further and say that they are trained to take out and cover up instances of racism and white supremacy.
J R in WV
White Supremacy, motivated by desperate racism, with a shaker-full of Ku Klux Klan violent racist intentions all over it. They wanted to kill black people, white people who didn’t hate black people like they do, and any Democratic office holder they could catch.
They’ve been doing this shit since not long after the US Army was pulled out of the CSA states around 1875(?) or so. Lynching people, burning homes and successful businesses serving the black community, stealing black-owned homes and farm land by faking tax liens, all the criminal hatred you can imagine for the past 147 or so years. No recourse for much of that time.
White racists are despicable, and should be sent somewhere far away from America. They don’t deserve to be part of America. Maybe Somalia? Probably too good for them! Most of them are lazy and want everything given to them because they’re willing to step on people of color. Grrrr!
debbie
Not sure why it’s surprising that followers of a longtime racist are racist or that the longtime racist used economic anxiety to jack up the racists. ??
NotMax
@J R in WV
It Takes a Pillage.
/snark
And a heaping helping of The Turner Diaries.
Steeplejack
Paraphrased from Twitter: “If it’s not coming from actual blue-collar steel workers and coal miners, it’s not economic anxiety, it’s just sparkling racism.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Torrey
In Pape’s (possible) defense, it’s the journalist, Alan Feuer, who claims Pape expected to find economic anxiety as the cause. Pape doesn’t say that in his article, although it’s a pretty fair bet that the study begins with a summary of what others have theorized. Journalists like to begin with “investigator expected X but found Y,” so until Pape, who is after all a pretty solid social scientist, says otherwise, I’m assuming the statement of expectations is Feuer’s attempt at a snappy opening.
Kent
Biden won handily by double digits with voters making under $50,000/year. And Trump won handily with voters making over $100,000 per year. statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/
Economic anxiety my ass. The only way you can twist those numbers to come to any other conclusion is by introducing race.
Villago Delenda Est
My nym. Again and yet again.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Bill Arnold
The WaPo piece by Robert A. Pape is at least a bit shoddy. Putnam County NY was won by Trump/Pence 59 percent in 2020, and is in no way blue. Lived there for 20 years; the Republican primary <em>is</em> the election for local offices. Very white/suburban.
Le Nettoyeur
@bbleh:
@Kent: Well, I would like to be able to agree with you, but I don’t think that Trumpers making > 100K per year automatically did so because they were racists. I suspect many of them just don’t want to pay taxes, period. That attitude is grossly irresponsible, but is not necessarily directly racially motivated, even though its effects are.
Mai Naem mobile
These white people(especially men) are kind of getting it from all ends. You’ve got the kids of African Americans who benefitted from civil rights legislation who are hitting their stride financially. The parents may have had mid-level success but they learned the skills to teach their kids to reached a higher level of success. Same goes for women. You’ve got kids of first generation hispanic immigrants going into white collar professions. You’ve got a huge increase in the number of Hispanics. You’ve got an increase of African immigrants pre-Trumpov who are more visible. You’ve got Asians in high tech and medicine. I honestly would have been surprised if I didn’t see this happening(not going as far as the Capitol stuff.)
Pennsylvanian
@Mai Naem mobile: Can’t really say that I agree. Getting it from all ends because people have educated themselves, worked hard and lifted themselves into the professional ranks, all the while white men expect to just continue to show up and have all the advantages. Those days NEED to be over. NOBODY can expect to walk out of high school into a well-paying middle class job like your dad did.
The fact that white men finally need to learn this lesson is not them getting it from all sides, it is white men having their privilege checked and having screaming tantrums about how none of it could be their fault.
Mai Naem mobile
@Pennsylvanian: I used the wrong phrase in ‘getting it from all sides.’ All I mean to say is that there’s a lot of things happening which affect their white male privilege negatively. I am not saying their reaction is justified, just that I am not surprised they have the reaction. My eldest sister went to a med professional grad school in the 70s in the UK where she was one of two females – as it happens they were both Asians. She faced not only sexism but racism as well. The UK went through something similar with Caucasians and South Asians in the 70s and 80s and I expected the same here.