Thread by @reportbywilson

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What have I learned from mapping and tracking the 750+ individuals arrested and charged for participating in the January 6th Insurrection?

During the past six months, I’ve developed, built, and updated the Capitol Riot Map: capitolriotmap.com

Here’s some thoughts—

There is not a singular narrative that captures the motivations of each of the Capitol Riot defendants, however, it does seem that whatever their individual reasons for participating in the January 6th, they all genuinely believed at the time they were part of a righteous cause.

A significant amount defendants were part of social groups (parents, siblings, spouses, or friends) that travel together to Washington, DC, attend the Stop the Steal rally, and participate in the Capitol Riot. (This is in addition to the coordinated networks of extremist groups.)

During the Capitol Riot, violent rhetoric was common not just among extremist actors, but statements captured on video making explicit calls for acts of violence against lawmakers were made by hundreds of defendants. Other violent rhetoric was expressed by majority of defendants.

In the immediate aftermath of January 6th, many defendants openly bragged about taking part in the Capitol Riot. In posts on social media, text messages to relatives and friends, they displayed a mix of emotions—the primary emotion was typically pride.

In the weeks and months after January 6th, many defendants engaged in a purging of evidence, including deleting social media posts, text messages, or images on mobile devices. How much data law enforcement has been able recovered is still unknown.

Christian Nationalism, more than any other ideological beliefs, has played the most significant role both in the motivations of the defendants, the performance of the attack, and the attempt by the Right to rewrite the history of January 6th.

Often defendants are portrayed by their families and supporters as “Christian Patriots,” any documented violent actions of the defendants is completely omitted, any connections to extremist groups is minimized, and focus in on their perceived unfair treatment by the legal system.

I also have come to disagree with the narrative that the participants in the Capitol Riot were politically or socially isolated. There are several studies, papers, and articles that examined the role of perceived isolation among the participants, which provided valuable insights:

The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

White terror: Millions of Americans say they'd support violence to restore Trump to power salon.com/2021/10/01/ter…

Martin Luther King Jr. was right. Racism and opposition to democracy are linked, our research finds. washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…

White Backlash Is A Type Of Racial Reckoning, Too fivethirtyeight.com/features/white…

I would argue there’s a need for more research and deeper analysis of how defendants who may appear socially or politically isolated in urban or metropolitan communities are actually part of their own insular communities, this is particularly true among religious fundamentalists.

Probably more on this later, but these are just a few of my observations and thoughts based on reading thousands of DOJ documents, court filings, media reports, and other sources related to the defendants arrested and charged for participating in the January 6th Capitol Riot.