• AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Apparently he was registered as a Republican, but in 2021 donated $15 to a liberal organization trying to increase voter turnout.

    I’m sure in a few days we’ll know his favorite ice cream flavor.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Crooks was registered as a Republican and was in active voting status, according to the database service LexisNexis. He appears to have attended Bethel Park High School, graduating in 2022.

      Wtf he just graduated high school a couple years ago? When I think of an attempted assassin, I don’t picture someone who can’t go into a bar to buy a beer.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Going by social media, it appears to me the young have nothing to lose and everything to gain in today’s America. They‘re backed to a corner in a country with extremely loose gun laws.

      • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It’s a pattern that befalls most pre-fascist states, that pattern being swaths of young men become disillusioned with the state of their country. Most of them will seek out and side with the fascist side, hence the overwhelming majority of young men voting red. But sometimes that disillusionment can turn to things like this.

        The dude lived out in Butler country, which is basically middle of nowhere PA. Pittsburgh is close, but a country like that just generally will only have shitty jobs, exacerbating whatever pre-existing feelings of existential doom the shooter had. So the shooter probably said “fuck it, my life isn’t going anywhere, may as well do something useful”.

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        Gavrillo princip, the guy who shot Franz Ferdinand and started WWI, was only 20 when he did it. In fact he was too young for the death penalty so he got to live through most of the war in a cell seeing the destruction he had brought.

        If you’re a depressed teenager and don’t think you’ll amount to anything, killing a politician seems like a great way to get your name in the history books if your brain hasn’t fully developed yet.

        • DogWater@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          This was my first thought.

          Also the French resistance group The White Rose (Sophie School and siblings) in WWII who were hanged by the Gestapo for handing out pamphlets.

        • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          The young’ns also have more at stake. The longer Trump influences policy, the more damage those policies will do. So, the younger the person, the more of a mortal threat Trump is. Dunno if that’s where the shooter’s head was at, but if it was, I kinda get it.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          One could argue he didn’t start it. But the event precipitated many other events that were ready to go.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      He donated on biden’s inauguration day, a day when those funds are useless to increase turnout. Also he is in PA, a state with closed primaries. The only way to vote against trump, or trumplike politicians in the primary is to be a republican, at least on paper.

      We don’t currently have enough information to make a conclusive statement about his political leanings.

    • III@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The 15 dollars was donated to a liberal PAC and then, a year later, the shooter registered as Republican. Order matters. Other things that matter, the person who donated 15 dollars was a 65 year old, not 17 years old. Also, fellow students have confirmed he had conservative ideologies and hung out with a conservative crowd, some who would sport MAGA hats proudly.

      So to OP. Wish granted.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Do you have a source on that 65 year old thing? I haven’t been able to find anything about it. Everything I’ve read recently keeps mentioning that the shooter made the donation.

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Facts have never stood in his way before. I’m sure he’ll say it’s a liberal illegal alien trans athlete.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The Rightwing take on this I’ve seen to date is:

    • It had to be a far-left communist TitTok-brainwashed Antifa radical islamist illegal because only someone that criminally insane would dare open fire on such a brave innocent President

    • Super Tacti-Cool Operator White Nationalists wouldn’t have missed

  • Enkrod@feddit.org
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    5 months ago

    Idc about what Trump’s gonna say, his Maggats are going to see this as the literal starting shot in the race to escalation.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It does feel awfully convenient that someone who you can’t pin down politically either way starts shooting (and misses!) as a sort of excuse to do it.

    • rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      The starting shot was on January 6th.

      The genie’s out of the bottle now. An runaway escalation of violence is pretty much guaranteed, and boy am I lucky I’m not in the States to witness it.

  • multifariace@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This is irrelevant. The talking point is already that it was Antifa. They are spouting how Democrats are the violent party with riots and looting.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It was also Antitru. Both are made-up words that refer to opposing an shortened ideology/name, and no one personally attests to being a part of.

    • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The us spent the last 60 years cowing the left by systematically destroying each leader that would ask for more than a chair to sit in. We won’t see anyone take action in our life times, they’re too dedicated to dying on their hills.

        • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          “no man you don’t get it; this paint is made up of over 70% ambergris that we bought from the whaling ships in order to make an artistic statement about the poaching industry and how capitalism bad. That statement will be made through the medium of splashing this horrid-smelling paint all over the side of this random factory building.”