By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

The more a city's white population fell, the greater the odds they were at the Capitol riot, a new study says.

Robert Pape is a political scientist who runs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He and his team examined the demographics of the known Jan. 6 rioters, with surprising results.

“The people alleged by authorities to have taken the law into their hands on Jan. 6 typically hail from places where non-White populations are growing fastest,” Pape wrote. That’s a wildly fascinating — and terrifying — conclusion to draw.

It also tracks with the history of the United States. “If you look back in history, there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups,” Pape told The New York Times.

“You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future.”

There has been no period of self-reflection from Trump supporters or the Republican Party leadership writ large since the riots. No mea culpas, no pledges to become a more diverse and welcoming coalition.

The culture wars the GOP continues to stoke — harnessing anger toward minorities and vulnerable populations for political gain — are only becoming more foundational to their ideology.

[msnbc.com]