The motivation of MAGA

[Angrboda]

Was watching news videos and there's a guy who has done a lot of research and polling on people who attended the Jan 6 insurrection and has come up with a basic motivational factor for these people.  Unsurprisingly, it is mostly white males from non-red states, educated and well paid people with good jobs and homes and such; a surprising number of business owners and doctors and lawyers and so forth.  They are basically afraid they are being replaced by brown people, or rather non-whites.  This is just another round of the usual nativism that has surged in multiple eras of US history.  I fit every category the research turned up except that I'm not religious and yet I don't have any of this fear of being replaced.  Why does this grip some people but not others.  I actually work with some people who attended rallies in their home towns on Jan 6.  The only reason they didn't go to DC was the time and costs involved.

Jonathan Haidt's work on morality suggests that loyalty as a moral value is a higher priority for conservatives than liberals. To me this suggests that conservatives are easier to motivate with appeals to group identity. In effect, it's easier to get conservatives to act in a tribalistic fashion than it is to get liberals to do the same. That dynamic leaves them vulnerable to bad actors in leadership positions.