Trump supporters storming Congress [split topic]

[JamesTC]

They weren't all cunts.

Some of them were racists.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

At the same time, the level of education is unusually low for extreme Trump supporters. Contrary to it being "the white working class", the Trump base is middle class - but specifically the middle class with the lowest levels of education media/cultural literacy.

It's one thing to intuitively link racism with being thick or blinkered, but I don't think thats it. Something has to happen to push a person over the line from just being passively xenophobic or bigotted and acting on a specific extreme political idea like the Great Replacement.

There are plenty of moderates who hold the same racist opinions about Mexicans that Trumps base does, but only a specific group of people get mobilized over something like "Migrant Caravans". The left/right filter among middle class whites is often unfortunately not racist v antiracist but holding prejudices passively v acting them on. There is an enormous amount of moral luck involved in whether a person gets to act on their most socially unacceptable beliefs and whether their irrationality is preyed upon by the outside. Whether one's capacity for cathartic hate is limited to jokes online with fellow lefties versus smashing a car with BLM sticker.

I mean, if you told me a common factor of Trump supporters was 1) rich and healthy enough to have lots of free time but 2) nothing to do with that time. I'd be instantly persuaded. Reactionary white politics is a cultural vacuum.

[bgmnts]

By thick I mean ignorant, for the record.

Just ignorant, hateful beasts of humans. They're sort of like chimpanzees.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

A head like an Orangeman.

[Endicott]

By thick I mean ignorant, for the record.

Just ignorant, hateful beasts of humans. They're sort of like chimpanzees.

If you other them like this, they become impossible to understand, and it becomes impossible to change things.

[bgmnts]

Things won't change.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Please don't be glib. The survival of so many people depends on things changing. Nowt wrong with calling evil people cunts but misanthropy and pessimism is only going to splash shit on people actually trying to change things.

[Huxleys Babkins]

If you've worked somewhere long enough, you've probably seen "replacement theory" in a microcosm. You'll see a mostly white, mostly male aging workforce retire and be replaced with younger "diversity hires". Because you've poor self-awareness, you've not twigged that you've had your feet under the table for too long, become complacent and not refreshed and updated your skillset, so these "diversity hires" seem to be getting the breaks at your expense for no better reason than the colour of their skin or their sex. Now that black kid that you and your chums teased with a bit of "harmless banter" is now your boss. How could that be? You should be the boss, right? You've been there longer, you must have forgotten more than he'll ever know. And now he says he doesn't even like the banter, he's pulling you up on it. Asking you to stop. How dare he? Snotty nosed little prick. Probably wants to get rid of you so you can replace you with a Muslim trans lesbian in a wheelchair, right?

And that's how the alt-right get their hooks in.

[chveik]

A study has just come out - most of those that stormed the capitol were over 40, had quite good jobs, families, not nutters from the fringes of society.

i'm guessing the terminally online mentally ill vulnerable young men were having a day off then

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Yeah, you're right. No point in thinking about that. Just ban a few people from Twitter and job's a good 'un.

I think the assumption here is that social stability means that someone is less vulnerable from being brain-borked by Facebook. That's not true. Not every form of precarity is manifest as a social or cultural difference. In terms of education level and social integration they are from the fringes, especially relatively since they don't come from traditionally hard right states, they just don't match how we usually think of that.  They're a fringe that thinks of itself as a norm. It would be better to rephrase the question as to how in the hell America got to the point where a fringe demographic held such an outsized chunk of political and economic power.

I realise no one here is saying this but: I'm absolutely terrified of "they're just bad people" line because if thats the mandate then the US state will designate them as domestic terrorists and will launch a war on terror at home. And anyone who thinks that will just affect people planning racist violence is clearly ignorant of recent American history. I also don't think this will be confined to the USA.

[Retinend]

A study has just come out - most of those that stormed the capitol were over 40, had quite good jobs, families, not nutters from the fringes of society. And when another survey was done, asking people if they thought the election was stolen, and would they take part in violent protests because of it, the proportion that said yes to both had something else in common - they all believe in the 'great replacement' theory, and believe that non-whites have 'more rights' than they do.

Fascinating results. It just goes to show how much racism drove the Trump movement (obviously not news to anyone, but a fact that sums it up well).

[pcsjwgm]

I realise no one here is saying this but: I'm absolutely terrified of "they're just bad people" line because if thats the mandate then the US state will designate them as domestic terrorists and will launch a war on terror at home. And anyone who thinks that will just affect people planning racist violence is clearly ignorant of recent American history. I also don't think this will be confined to the USA.

The new war on terror has already begun, with the complicity of progressive Democrats:

THREAD.   A major scandal is happening right this moment on the House floor: mainstream Democrats are quietly trying to ram through a $1.9 billion *budget increase* to the Capitol Police, military, and DHS, supposedly because January 6 showed that they **need more funding.** (1)

...

UPDATE:  Devastating news. This dangerous bill passed 213-212, with @RepAOC @RashidaTlaib and @JamaalBowmanNY abandoning their positions and voting "present" instead of against it, thus supporting giving cops more money and weapons to use against the most vulnerable people.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1395405768455856132
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1395421126239604736

This is especially disappointing not only because the progressives obviously failed to do the right thing, but Tlaib, Bowman, and AOC specifically warned against an expansion of "national security" powers earlier this year:

Ten progressive members of Congress, led by the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib have sent a letter to congressional leadership expressing opposition to an expansion of national security powers.

"The Trump mob's success in breaching the Capitol was not due to a lack of resources at the disposal of federal law enforcement," the letter reads. "We firmly believe that the national security and surveillance powers of the US government are already too broad, undefined, and unaccountable to the people."

"Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people," the letter continues.

It cites as examples the McCarthy-era House Un-American Activities Committee, the surveillance of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the invention of a category in 2017 called "Black Identity Extremism" the FBI claimed posed a risk of domestic terrorism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/26/push-combat-us-domestic-terrorism-far-right-extremism
https://tlaib.house.gov/sites/tlaib.house.gov/files/NationalSecurityOpp.pdf

[idunnosomename]

what's quite funny is that Jon Schaffer, head honcho of metal band Iced Earth ended up getting released on bail because he ratted out a bunch of other people. some patriot.

pretty sure he'll never play open E string riffs on stage ever again lol. silly cunt

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Thank God all that grotesque military spending is just to target people with privilege, garbage dumpster fire people and IDIOTS!!! in MAGA hats. Especially after the Trump-era Feds building up such a database on "black identity extremism" and decolonial groups. Democracy will be protected again.