Pro-Trump supporters storm the US Capitol after a rally with then-President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.
Image by Samuel Corum / Getty
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Image by Samuel Corum / Getty
Pro-Trump supporters storm the US Capitol after a rally with then-President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.
Image by Samuel Corum / Getty
Even words of caution tell our differences.
As the country reflects on a year since a violent mob tried to block the certification of election results, there will be gatherings for those who believe the attack was a deliberate coup. destination and people who are worried about passing limited voting rules in some states.
There will also be events for those who falsely claim that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election and who consider those arrested in connection with the riots.”political prisoners. “
Whatever hope Americans can count on that 2021 will be a year of healing political divisions has played out quite differently. Instead, surveys show alarms are growing on one democracy in crisis, the birth of a mass movement sympathized with the uprising, and increasingly supported political violence.
A “mass movement” built on lies and violence
Immediately after the riot, the energy behind it seemed to have been channeled underground. Key voices, Trump among them, have been removed from Twitter. Online gathering spaces like Parler have gone offline. Paranoia about increased surveillance by law enforcement has led groups like the Boogaloo Boys to cancel public gatherings.
But the relative quiet is only temporary.
“These movements are unbroken in any sense and they’ve spent the last year working very hard figuring out how to overcome the new barriers that lie ahead,” said Jared Holt, Resident Fellow at Atlantic Council’s Digital. previous” Forensic Research Laboratory (DFRLab), which has been tracking right-wing online activity for the past year. “Many of them have had success doing so to varying degrees.”
Research from DFRLab Watch how, especially starting in the summer of 2020, far-right groups focus on a decentralized, ground-based approach to finding new sympathizers.
Instead of organizing large, national gatherings around false claims of a stolen election, they have entrenched themselves in local debates through racially inclusive school curricula and request for school mask.
According to Mary McCord, a visiting professor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Defense at Georgetown University, the messages they spread through that grassroots approach are also shared by many Party leaders. Republic consolidated at the top.
“For me, one of the most alarming developments of 2021 since the uprising has been the effort, especially among influencers and politicians, to normalize major conspiracy theories. ideologically, mostly rejecting elections and also normalizing political, ideological violence,” she said.
ONE Recent surveys from the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) at the University of Chicago estimates that 21 million adults now fall into what it calls the “American insurgency movement,” characterized by a belief incorrectly believe that Trump won the 2020 election and that using force would be justifiable to bring him back to the White House.
Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and director of CPOST, said: “What we are facing is a significant amount of community support across the political spectrum, consistent with The sentiments of January 6, do not simply disappear,” said Robert Pape, professor at the University of Chicago and director of CPOST. “And that’s really worrisome for the future because that means there’s a fairly large amount, think of it like a dry fire in water, which can be extinguished by a spark that then has could turn into another wildfire.”
The New Face of Extremism
As researchers have detailed information on more than 700 suspects arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, there is growing awareness that traditional tools to combat extremist violence in the United States have may not be applicable.
CPOST’s analysis of the social and economic demographics of the suspects found that they were older, more educated, and enjoyed more economic and family stability than right-wing violent offenders did. arrested by federal authorities in recent years.
“More than half are business owners – they own flower shops or are CEOs – or [are] from white-collar craft, [like] doctors, lawyers, and attorneys,” said Pape. You’ll have to travel back to the rise of the Second KKK in the 1920s to witness middle-class whites engaging in this kind of collective political violence. It’s actually quite, quite historically important. “
But in surveying widespread public support for the uprising, Pape said research from CPOST found one hallmark that distinguishes that group from the rest of the political body: belief in the theory. to replace.
“They are very concerned about the idea that white rights are being overtaken by minority rights or that the Democrats are bringing in immigrants to change the demographics of the country deliberately disenfranchising voters.” current conservative tri”. Pape.
After discretization, the theory of substitution increasingly crept into mainstream discourse. The willingness of some Americans to accept it points to the weakness that led a mob to storm the Capitol based on lies about election fraud.
“We can’t track and remove our condition to make it worse,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor and research director at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. get out of this situation. “People have to have the skill and ability to recognize what that propaganda is.”
Experts agree that solutions will require input and action from stakeholders beyond law enforcement – including faith leaders, educators and politicians. They also agree that the path towards those solutions doesn’t seem clear right now.
“Sometimes, you know, you feel as if you have to get out of this mental space because it’s so depressing and painful,” says McCord. “But I also think we have to keep talking about it.”
