Stuart Cosgrove: Economic factors driving Capitol rioters are mirrored in the UK

During eight hours of testimony, on the opening day, Democrat politicians, ­acting as “impeachment managers”, berated Trump for having whipped up a frenzy among his most volatile supporters that a demonstration of support for him ­degenerated into a violent insurrection.

The video evidence, some of it ­previously unseen footage from security ­cameras, shown to the house was remarkable in its detail. It emphasised how close some of the elected members were to the mob and the risk they faced for a dramatic few minutes.

The video showed footage of Vice ­President Mike Pence, along with his family, being ushered away from what he wrongly assumed was a safe hiding place, with protestors just a few hundred feet away. This was the Republican vice-president of the United States in scenes ­reminiscent of a 1970s disaster movie, clutching his family and ­hurrying them to safety. It showed Democrat Chuck ­Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, ­being led by his security detail down one corridor, and just like a movie, ­having to run back again as they saw the ­insurgents charging their way.

The video was carefully calculated to look into the soul of the Republican Party, by showing Senator Mitt ­Romney running down a corridor in fear, ­office staff barricading themselves into a ­storeroom and congressmen and women being led down a back staircase, wearing gas masks. There was a crude image of a mock gallows which had been erected just outside the Capitol, and repeated threats to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House.

This was not the excitable day out that many have since characterised it as. It was a full-blown attack on American democracy, and it was pre-planned, yet still it may not be enough to prise Republicans away from the awe and fear of Trump to vote against him.

It seems that even from his golf resort in Florida, the humiliated Trump, still exerts a malign force and that many ­Republican supporters will vote in his favour, rallying round the battle-cry, right or wrong, “he’s my President”. Some fear Trump and his vengeful personality, others are keenly counting votes back home and want to keep the most emotional supporters on side, doubtless a few fear for their personal safety if they vote against the mob.

What really intrigued me was not the ­violent disruption, I had already seen much of that to form an opinion. The real killer piece of investigative journalism came from a phenomenal piece of background research by the journalist Todd C Frankel of the Washington Post.

As Frankel worked his way through the life-stories of both the ringleaders and the insurrectionists arrested on the day, a pattern began to emerge. It was not the predictable characteristics he expected, yes some were racists, ­others had a history of small-scale violence in their local community, and others were fantasists who cleaved towards the most bizarre conspiracy theories, but what was more revealing was their shared financial profiles.

Frankel became fascinated by what he had stumbled upon and began to dig ­deeper into the stories of those arrested. One of the insurrectionists, Jenna Ryan (50) had flown into Washington DC in a private jet hired by a friend. But ­despite this distracting fact, she had struggled ­financially for years. Ryan was still ­paying off a $37,000 bond for unpaid federal ­taxes when she was arrested. She had nearly lost her home to foreclosure before that and had filed for bankruptcy in 2012. One by one Frankel dug into the background of those arrested and ­substantially over 60% had serious ­financial difficulties: heavy debt, threats of foreclosure on property or the impending risk of bankruptcy.

According to Frankel, “The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18% — was nearly twice as high as that of the American ­public. A quarter of them had been sued for ­money owed to a creditor. And one in five of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.”

The financial factor, hidden behind reams of newsprint about neo-fascist groups like The Oath Keepers and The Proud Boys, and masked by the QAnon conspiracy theorists, had gone hitherto unnoticed until Frankels’ research.

CYNTHIA Miller-Idriss, a political science professor who runs the Polarization and Extremism Lab at American University in Washington DC studies the psychology of extremism. She weighed in behind Frankel’s revelations and argues that extreme precariousness, more than simply being short of money, was a key driver in fermenting the insurrection.

“I think what you’re finding”, she told the Post, “is more than just economic insecurity but a deep-seated feeling of precarity about their personal situation. And that precarity — combined with a sense of betrayal or anger that someone is taking something away — mobilized a lot of people that day.”

Research shows that it was the so-called squeezed middle of small business owners and white-collar workers who made up 40% of the people accused of taking part in the Capitol Building riots. In the main these were people who believed, rightly or wrongly, that they had been robbed of their security and that part of their identity had been taken from them.

According to Frankel, “While some of the financial problems were old, the pandemic’s economic toll appeared to inflict fresh pain for some of the people accused of participating in the insurrection. A California man filed for bankruptcy one week before allegedly joining the attack, according to public records. A Texas man was charged with entering the Capitol one month after his company was slapped with a nearly $2000 state tax lien.”

Using the old metaphor of American sneezing it is not too difficult to extrapolate a similar kind of impact in the UK where a growing army of disillusioned, middle-income earners have recently seen escalating debt or bankruptcy looming in their lives. The pandemic has battered feelings of job security as furlough ends and homeworking shreds connections back to headquarters.

Many people, especially across swathes of England are waking up to the realities of Brexit, and are now witnessing that it is not the magic-wand of freedom that it was cynically portrayed as. It would be sheer guesswork, because no accurate survey has been done yet, but I suspect many thousands of people have put their start-up businesses into cold storage or unable to see an end to lockdown have simply posted the keys of their retail business through the landlord’s door.

There is now a growing evidence that people in similar situations in America turned violently against their seat of government, willed on by a defeated and toxic former President. Where will the disillusioned Brexiteers and the newly bankrupt victims of Tory England go next?

America has already sneezed.