It’s hard to avoid a conclusion that much of Wednesday - and the last few weeks, heck years - has been driven by the increasing diversity of the country & the fact that people of color are starting to be a decisive force in elections in a way that threatens many white people. 1/ https://twitter.com/asmith83/status/1347894687605075968

The reality is that the United States remains in many ways essentially imperial in outlook - and in an empire, one of the things that makes it an empire is that there are rulers and those who are ruled. The demographic change threatens many people’s sense of their place. 2/

Hence the large number of affluent elites who were in ranks of those storming the Capitol. Ditto the number of people connected with law enforcement and the military. 3/

And as much as I hate to say it, this decade that fear is likely only to be exacerbated. First, the country is going to get only more diverse - in fact, at a faster clip as very diverse younger generations come of age & older mostly white generations start to leave the scene. 4/

But this decade also will be one where I suspect the swing of the pendulum back toward Asia after 250 years of western dominance will start to enter people’s consciousness in a very real way - and that will add to the fear. 5/

And though in a world of racially polarized voting, the backlash to demographic change is mostly (though not exclusively) among Republicans, my guess is that the backlash to the swing toward Asia will be more bipartisan. 6/