The Atlantic

The Capitol Rioters Weren’t ‘Low Class’

The business owners, real-estate brokers, and service members who rioted acted not out of economic desperation, but out of their belief in their inviolable right to rule.
Source: Getty / The Atlantic

Updated at 11:13 a.m. on April 21, 2021.

They were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads, and, I assume, some Proud Boys.

The mob that breached the Capitol last week at President Donald Trump’s exhortation, hoping to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, was full of what you might call “respectable people.” They left dozens of Capitol Police officers injured, screamed “,” threatened to , and outside the building. Some were extremists , but as federal authorities issue indictments, a striking number of those they name appear to be regular Americans.

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