The Political Geography of the January 6 Insurrectionists

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/political-geography-of-the-january-6-insurrectionists/3C59F4E94F90B63F0E80A86DFB487D01

Abstract

What are the local political, economic, and social conditions of the communities that sent insurrectionists to the US Capitol in support of Donald Trump? Using a new dataset of the home counties of individuals charged for the Capitol insurrection, we tested two prominent theories of electoral populism and support for populist leaders like Donald Trump—demographic change and manufacturing decline—and whether they also explain violent populism. We also examined the effects of local political conditions. We find that white population decline is a stronger predictor of violent populism and that counties that voted for Trump were less likely to fight for Trump. The effect of white population decline is even greater in counties whose US House Representative rejected the 2020 election results. These findings suggest scholars should resist assuming violent populism is merely an extension of electoral populism, and solutions to one will not necessarily remedy the other.

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America experienced a violent populist backlash against the results of the 2020 presidential election when an estimated 2,000 people stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. They were seeking to overturn the election’s results and were supported by many thousands more who surrounded the Capitol but did not enter.

Scholarship on the causes and consequences of this paradigmatic event and its implications for understanding violent populism is still in its early stages. To date, studies have explored both “top-down” explanations, which emphasize the role of then-President Trump and political elites who supported the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen (Arceneaux and Truex Reference Arceneaux and Truex 2022), and “bottom-up” explanations, which emphasize the importance of perceived victimhood, white identity, conspiratorial thinking, and other key factors (Armaly, Buckley, and Enders Reference Armaly, Buckley and Enders 2022; Armaly and Enders Reference Armaly and Enders 2022; Crothers and Burgener Reference Crothers and Burgener 2021; Jardina and Mickey Reference Jardina and Mickey 2022; Piazza and Van Doren Reference Piazza and Van Doren 2022). An important gap in the existing scholarship is that it does not analyze the insurrectionists themselves, focusing instead on public support for the Capitol insurrection and political violence after the attack occurred. This study, by contrast, uses data on the charged insurrectionists to understand the local conditions that produced insurrectionists in the first place.

The insurrectionists traveled to Washington, DC, from communities across the country that varied in their support for Donald Trump. For example, many communities that might be expected to produce insurrectionists—counties with large populations of more than 350,000 and that voted for Trump in 2020 by more than 10 points, including Tulsa, Oklahoma; Waukesha, Wisconsin; and Kern, California—produced no insurrectionists. At the same time, some communities with small populations that voted for Joe Biden by more than 40 points—counties including San Miguel, Colorado; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Berkshire, Massachusetts—all produced at least one.

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