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Conservatives are shooting conservatives now, so I guess I better vote conservative for being so brave by standing up to conservatives.
Not the first time they go against each other, this is just the most high profile target so far. Remember that redditor who murdered his own father because he thought he’s some sort of liberal? Or when they tried to hang Mike Pence? There’s quite a few such cases, just typically not the former president / current presidential candidate. Who knows what went on in this guys head, he was likely kinda deranged like many of the other perps were. Maybe something about Trump made him think he wronged him in some way or the recent reveals actually opened his eyes and made him feel betrayed. Or he was just conservative but anti-Trump and saw him as dangerous enough to make use of his right to squash a fascist uprising. There’s so many potential scenarios.
right around 20 years old is a prime time for schizophrenia to surface
Kids are also just ridiculously vulnerable to radical ideologies. It’s entirely possible this guy thought Trump wasn’t extreme enough.
I’ve always said that if the wrong person love bombed me at exactly the right moment in my life I could have easily been part of a cult. 20 year old me needed a fucking hug and would have worshipped Marmaduke or whatever to get one. Even in my 30s at exactly the wrong moment I could have gotten sucked into some fucked up shit because my life had several extremely negative things happen all at once.
That’s me right now, in my early 30s and the last 14 months has just been a non stop onslaught of bad. I have to rebuild my social circle from the ground up. Doing my best not to get into anything I’ll regret later
Keep your chin up. You’re absolutely not alone. By the sounds of it part of what you are going through is part of what I went through.
I’ll say it ain’t easy, but after I did come out of it (only one largeish regret!) things ended up better than ever. It took a lot of effort and more luck than I’m willing to admit but it was so worth it.
We already know he was a conservative voter, there’s no need to pile on any other mental illness diagnoses
I dunno if I like jumping to mental illness as an explanation for this in reinforcing established and disproven stereotypes
There’s always some mental health issues with something like this. The very concept of killing someone and knowing you’re going to die as a result requires an altered mental state.
I wouldn’t say so in every situation. I’m sure plenty parents would say they would die to defend their kid, and I don’t think that would quality for an altered mental state.
I mostly do agree though, but I do think you can sacrifice yourself as a rational and mentally healthy person. But it certainly not a choice that hypothetical person would make lightly.
Well yeah, the whole greater love thing. This doesn’t strike me as such a situation though…
I’m just pointing out a truth about the disease. If you have ever witnessed someone change almost overnight at that age, it’s a possibility an undiagnosed illness is revealing itself. People do some whacked out shit, especially if they are intelligent.
Mike Pence is gonna roll in votes.
He’s a law-and-order conservative: there was nothing criminal about Trump’s failed coup d’état
And Thomas Matthew Crooks was just a peaceful tourist doing peaceful touristy things, just like all the Jan6
rioterspeaceful tourists - I think I’m getting the hang of this.Like Pence almost did :)
There is no fucking place for that level of cleverness at a time like this.
He registered as Republican, identified as Republican, and classmates remember him as conservative.
maga: RINO! FAKE CONSERVATIVE! ANTIFA DEMOCRAT LIBERAL AGENT!!!
How dare you try to kill our politicians!? We’re the only ones allowed to kill politicians around here!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/nancy-pelosi-husband-paul-attack/index.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism
A former classmate of the 20-year-old man who tried unsuccessfully to kill former President [and convicted felon] Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday recalled him being staunchly to the right of the political spectrum. “He definitely was conservative,” Max R. Smith told The Philadelphia Inquirer of Thomas Crooks. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith shared an American history class with Crooks, and remembered a mock debate where their teacher made students stand on one side of the classroom or another to signal their allegiance. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.” Crooks died in the assassination attempt. Trump, who suffered a minor injury to the ear, was “fine” Sunday after being treated at a local medical facility, his campaign said. One audience member was killed and two others critically injured amid the gunfire.
That’s kind of fucked up, asking kids to tell their political allegiance… In debates we were assigned an opinion and had to defend it no matter what our personal opinion was to make us understand how to build arguments…
When I was in 8th grade, at a Catholic private school… I was the only person who preferred liberal. During the debates we had, I won over a majority of my classmates with my arguments in favor of doing things how Jesus would behave. I won the debate but the teacher didn’t recognize my success. It was actually very illuminating at the time and has stayed with me all my life. Hardcore conservatives will choose reactionary ideas over their religion.
I had a similar experience in middle school when my parents signed me up for CCD (after school program to get you ready for Catholic confirmation). I considered myself a Christian until then and was looking forward to the program…until my non-combative questions about applying Jesus’ teachings to the real world were dismissed and I saw the cult mentality I had fallen for.
Weirdly enough, the final nail in the
wristcoffin was when I asked my teacher how he knew that What Dreams May Come was not an accurate representation of pergatory and he said “it just isn’t.”I had the opposite experience at a Catholic public school, though most of the teachers (except the born-again 😒) were careful not to talk about their personal opinions much.
Most of the kids I went to school with were either secular or not very religious, though there were some believers for sure. Our debate topics were randomly assigned, so people often argued for things they didn’t believe in.
I agree with your last sentence though, definitely observed that across various different religions.
We never had debate, but in a performance acts class once we were asked our opinion on something and then would have to defend the opposite opinion.
It was nothing so blatantly polarising as only one person on one side though.
I agree.
I get that Lemmy is super liberal, but this kind of mentality is toxic. It results in a generation that is unwilling to question their beliefs, leans into mob mentality, and doesn’t see the need to understand and articulate political beliefs you support.
I had to argue that some babies are evil and people legit goy angry at me.
All kids are evil
They’re just little ids.
And then they kick you in the nuts for the lulz
Smith shared an American history class with Crooks, and remembered a mock debate where their teacher made students stand on one side of the classroom or another to signal their allegiance.
Please tell me this was college.
In college it’s assigned and you’re expected to defend the assigned position. You also get switched in subsequent issues modules so you don’t get pigeonholed and nobody can just stay on the side they like.
Yeah that’s how I experienced it but it sounds like this story was from high school and telling students to segregate themselves like that seems super fucked up.
I agree, that’s basically asking someone to other themselves. It would be a great test if you wanted to see which students needed support and counseling. But not as some kind of learning objective.
Let them fight
Maybe Trump wasn’t extremist enough for him. Or maybe he recognized that Trump and the Republican party have ceased being “conservative” a long time ago. Or maybe he recognized Trump as the danger to America.
Or he wanted a different candidate. Imagine if he was a vivek ramaswamy fan lol
I keep wondering if he thought Trump was just the right target to kick off the Boogaloo
Now that is a good theory
My personal suspicion (not based on any hard data, just a guess) is that he was a right-wing accelerationist who thought that killing Trump and/or his supporters would encourage others to “fight back” against the liberals and start the war the right has been itching to fight for decades. I’ve seen that same thing before in the boogaloo boys.
Pure speculation but, given his age, there is a good chance he saw Trump and American Conservativism as the Nazi cover operation it is and wanted to fight his own WW2 against overwhelming evil. College is about the time we learn the world doesn’t run like a small town and massive things can exist like human rights abuses and amoral politics. He probably felt Tlthat shock and frustration that the world continues to be ruthless because and in spite of us.
Then he saw a figurehead for the alt right and decided to be the change he wanted to see in the world.
I mean, if he was staunchly conservative, learning those facts would only make him care less about others. After all, God only punishes the evil! If you’re being enslaved, it’s because you’re bad!
… This is a direct thought pattern I’ve witnessed many times in conservatives. They use any tragedy as a sign that the person it befell is bad. Similarly, they might view the close call as protection by “god”…
Yes, conservatives have the brains of children.
He was young enough to be a Believer of Buckley. He may have actually believed in being right wing by principle and didn’t like hypocrisy.
Notice how I started my post with, “even if”. I’m not talking about the shooter specifically, but Republican brain rot in general.
If you think moronic religous beliefs don’t have a huge influence on conservatives, you haven’t been paying attention at all.
Eh, nobody’s described him as religious yet, only conservative.
My point still stands for every religous conservative. I’m not speaking to the shooter specifically, but conservative brain rot in general.
If you think conservative brain rot is limited only to the religous, then you are extremely foolish.
I’m done letting any conservative describe reality to me without telling them to stfu.
I’ve been done for twenty five fucking years, since Gingrich and Limbaugh and that generation of social parasites.
As a Georgia native I am eternally sorry to everyone for unleashing Newt on the world, I couldn’t vote until well after he arose but I still feel bad about it
Republican on Republican violence, how sad.
Now I want to hear how that’s the best way to own libs
I assumed he just voted republican because the area was and he wanted some influence but this would blow that theory out of the water.
He lived in a borough of Pittsburgh, wouldn’t he want to register as a dem so he would have more influence?
No, it’s a solid red district. Bethel Park is in House District 40, which is a +30 R district. They have voted R for congress ever since 1969, the first election listed.
Wait, so he’s in a candy apple red district, but somehow every single person in his American History class was standing on the liberal side of the room during their little exercise? That little anecdote sounds a little fishy.
high school and college kids tend to be way more liberal. younger in general do. Im still flabbergasted how so many people I knew through school went right. Granted most of those never seemed to be very commited but more just going with the flow.
Yeah, I get that schools/youth tend to skew more liberal, but everyone?! Out of that entire class, not one single kid except for Shooter McSnowflake on the red side? Seems hinky. Hell, even if the district went 65/35 liberal instead of conservative, I’d still expect at least a smattering of neocon kids, Bible thumpers, rednecks, whatever… Gotta be a handful of them, even if it’s a small handful. Is the classmate misremembering? Intentional exaggeration? Just seems like this is trying too hard to push an angle, IMO. I’m just not sure what that angle actually is.
from my experience that would be the case but likely its going to depend on the size of the school. when i was in my small grade school I had no one to hang with but the high school was much larger and I had a small nerd crowd of friends.
Or that’s just what happened. The same thing happened in my school when we did something similar, and I grew up in a solid red sundown town.
It’s a much more pronounced effect in places that still have lead pipes.
No clue on the article’s accuracy either way, but he may have grown up in a different district than he currently lives.
Smith shared an American history class with Crooks, and remembered a mock debate where their teacher made students stand on one side of the classroom or another to signal their allegiance. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,”
Conservatism isn’t mutually exclusive with liberalism.
By definition conservatism and liberalism are opposite. However, modern Conservatives in America are largely Neoliberals in terms of most policies except stuff like religion, sex, and race.
Are you sure you don’t mean conservatism and progressivism?
By definition conservatism and liberalism are opposite.
Would you mind sharing what definitions (with its source(s)) that you are using?
I wonder if he saw the light and realized what Trump was doing to millions others like him that were still stuck in darkness.
Interdasting:
When Crooks was 17 he made a $15 donation to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians, according to a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing. The donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project, a national group that rallies Democrats to vote.
Apparently was also part of a BlackRock ad.
To the best of my knowledge, the donation has been debunked as a 69 year old guy with the same name from the same area of swpa.
Apparently was also part of a BlackRock ad.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/blackrock-says-suspect-trump-rally-appeared-2022-ad-2024-07-15/
“In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks,”
Pretty sure this one is just grasping at straws
yeah this was information that was just pouring in from all over the place. With that comes speculations and theories.
Maybe don’t speculate publicly on information that’s barely been confirmed and could easily be turned into a conspiracy theory?
This is how conspiracy theories start, with “just asking questions” at least wait until a single investigation is over before becoming a truther please.
