Caring deeply about my message exactly every 4 years is truly inspiring

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I just want to chime in and say thank you for editing your post after finding new information. If everyone in the world was like you, this place would suck a lot less.

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        Not only editing but leaving the old info so people don’t get confused, that’s awesome behaviour.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Snopes doesn’t know. They know someone with his information donated on his behalf at the very least. That said a fun easy to piss people off is too make public donations to things they do not like or support in their name.

          Got a friend who doesn’t support planned parenthood, dope. Make a public donation in their name and send them the link to watch the brain melting commence.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s hard to actually tell. There’s a 69 year old Thomas Crooks in Pittsburgh who regularly donated to ACT BLUE.

        ACT BLUE also does not accept donations from those under 18 due to legal liability issues.

        On the other hand, the donation in question, on Jan 20 2021, had Thomas M Crooks’ address. Or at least his zip code.

        • Dadd Volante@sh.itjust.works
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          You shouldn’t trust Snopes at all anymore. They literally said that Trump never said “good people on both sides”.

          Which Trump bragged about in the debate a few days later.

          I don’t trust them at all, anymore

              • Optional@lemmy.world
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                Yeah, a couple of problems with it though:

                First, he DID say, after the “Jews will not replace us” march, and intentional murder of a counter-protestor that there were “very fine people on both sides.” So he DID say that. The statement that he did not say that is false. Note:

                Editors’ Note: Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump’s characterization was wrong.

                Secondly, Snopes has apparently incorporated the trump administration’s walk-back of that to say yeah he didn’t know they were all nazis.

                While I disagree with that analysis, it is laid out plainly that that’s how they arrived at the true/false determination of what this demented sociopath meant.

                Which is - imo wrong, but fair. Identifying an address that matches the address of alleged shooter is simply comparing two empirical values. So while I disagree with the ‘both sides’ analysis I think there’s room for them to claim it was false, unlike the donation address matching the shooter’s address.

  • udon@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It IS weird though that he tried to shoot the Rep candidate and I can’t really see why, yet. We will probably hear a lot of explanations for this and I’d be curious about yours.

    So far I have heard rumours about a possible inside job/secret service involvement as an explanation, because they should have been aware of him. Might be, but I personally haven’t seen anything too convincing to verify or falsify this.

    Another one I could see is that he wanted to vote Republican but at some point realized that Trump sucks ass to put it mildly. So he tried to somehow push the Rep party to at least get back in touch with the idea of sanity by killing him?

    Other than that… make Trump a martyr somehow? Have a plot to blame it on the Dems? Mental issues?

    • Phegan@lemmy.world
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      I feel like he was unwell, and trying to apply reason to his motives will be a fool’s errand.

      • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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        Just because someone is unwell doesn’t mean that reason can’t be applied to his motives. Most mental illnesses still follow some (twisted and perverse) logic

      • udon@lemmy.world
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        This is quite a significant incident in the middle of an important election campaign. While some reasons for the attempt may seem insignificant (e.g., mental illness), others could turn out to be quite important moving forward (e.g., involvement of secret service, faked attempt by Trump’s team etc.). Any evidence for or against any of these could have political implications and effects on the election results.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      There are two explanations which I don’t find ludicrous, if you assume the shooter to be far right:

      • He was a Qanoner who bought the “we’ve gotta hunt the pedophiles” but didn’t develop the cognitive dissonance to also think “but that doesn’t mean Trump obviously”.

      • He was angry about Trump trying to distance himself from Project 2025 (even though that was merely rhetoric, but an angry and radical 20 years old may not understand that).

      • DessertStorms
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        some small portion of Republicans still don’t support fascists.

        Lmmfao, if that were the case, they wouldn’t still be republicans

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      There are three theories

      1. Trump had people hire him to pretend to assassinate him, and he went along with it thinking it’d boost Trump’s ratings (Kinda dumb and conspiratorial)

      2. He wasn’t aiming for Trump, but someone in the crowd, and Trump was hit by mistake (Given that he doesn’t aim for center of mass, this makes sense)

      3. He wanted to kill Trump, fearing he wasn’t Right Leaning enough (There are already people bashing Vance not for being racist, but for not being racist enough)

      Also wasn’t the payment to the Biden campaign found to actually be someone else with a similar name?

      • evidences@lemmy.world
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        Also wasn’t the payment to the Biden campaign found to actually be someone else with a similar name?

        The donation was to ActBlue not Biden and the FEC filing was his name at the house he lived at. It’s unlikely it was someone else unless he was named for his grandpa or something and he lived with them

        You can view the FEC filings yourself by going to the FEC website and search his name and zip code in the individual contribution search.

      • udon@lemmy.world
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        Ah, I didn’t consider the other side of the spectrum that maybe Trump isn’t fascist enough for him.

      • blueeggsandyam@lemmy.world
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        Another theory is that he might have thought it would accelerate the right leaning movement by killing or wounding Trump. It is also possible he liked the movement but not Trump.

        Theories 1 and 2 don’t make any sense. Trump has too much of an ego for 1 and 2 would be weird. If you aren’t going after Trump, anyone else would be easier to shoot when not next to Trump.

    • Syrc@lemmy.world
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      Another one I could see is that he wanted to vote Republican but at some point realized that Trump sucks ass to put it mildly. So he tried to somehow push the Rep party to at least get back in touch with the idea of sanity by killing him?

      I could see that happening. While I still dislike it, conservatism by itself is a valid ideology. Maybe he believed in the core principles of the party (small government, free market, christianity, etc.) and was sick of the main candidate being a lying fascist that is the spitting image of the biblical antichrist.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    I’ve seen actblue ask for money for literally everything. Likely they were advertising for something conservative.

    • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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      Summary since I haven’t seen it in the comments yet: they cracked his phone. There was some sort of high level briefing and some info got leaked:

      1. He either had or just googled some kind of depressive disorder (could potentially relate to motive if he was bipolar and having a manic episode or something).

      2. He had pictures saved of the schedules for both Trump and Biden’s national convention appearances. So he could have been trying to go after both of them, potentially.

      • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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        Usually after 18 is when most bipolar people have their first major episode. There’s really no access to mental healthcare for someone like him. You’re lucky if you can see a p-doc for ten minutes. Usually you’ll see a primary care physician first and there’s a good chance that they’re going to prescribe you antidepressants, which is like throwing gas on the fire. It takes months or years of trying different medications to find a combo that works for you and that requires a support system of people who can tell how you’re doing and you have to have a willingness to be miserable for an indefinate period of time. Certain meds will make you feel better for a month or two and then they’ll gradually stop working. People get frustrated and stop taking medication because it makes them feel like shit. Dropping meds completely is the worst thing, it’s like dumping a 100 lb backpack that you’ve been carrying for months. You feel like you can jump ten feet in the air, nobody can stop you.

      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        He had pictures saved of the schedules for both Trump and Biden’s national convention appearances. So he could have been trying to go after both of them, potentially.

        That’s the kind of bipartisanship that I can support.

  • Eol@sh.itjust.works
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    It’s funny, I tend to fixate on shooting events when they happen and follow the news and dig into it. But I didn’t even hear about this till days later.

    My conspiracy is that this kid got groomed or extorted by stronger sovereign types to do this. Basically all politics use youth. Youth are the ones fucked over because adults want to get something. Business marketing to youth to make money etc… America’s youth are puppets. Shit, it’s the same reason why conservatives say colleges are indoctrinating people. It’s the same dumb bullshit on all sides of pop politics… Market to and use the youth to advance your ideology while killing innocence of just “existing” and “being” so that one can feel some fake security and solidify their perception of reality.

    • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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      If by using the youth you mean discussing very prevalent political items that they will absolutely need to deal with in a time where they are forming their perception of what reality is actually like… then yeah…

      When else would be an appropriate time to discuss current standings, issues, and opinions than during the dawn of adulthood? We vote at 18 in the US… it’s absolutely acceptable to be talking about this stuff when teens are starting highschool. And of all the political sides, try as the republicans may, democratic/liberal policies are generally based on how things are affecting everyone from the richest of rich down to the smallest minority demographic.

      Sure there’s crazies on both sides, but trying to find a Republican who’s open to different ideas and concerns is a lot harder than finding a dem. One is based on modernization and societal progress while the other just points to any problem and suggests regression and suppression. Pretty simple imo

    • DessertStorms
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      My conspiracy is that this kid got groomed or extorted by stronger sovereign types to do this.

      I’ve been having similar thoughts. It seems much more likely to me that a trump fanboy could be convinced to take part in a convoluted plan to stage an assassination to create the hero/survivor/martyr/victim narrative for not much at all (but including the false promise that he would make it out alive, and maybe a free shot in to the crowd, as a treat), and that the christofascist police would look the other way (or just be their usual incompetent selves), than that one would not only get disillusioned to the point of wanting to kill him, but also being able to pull off something like this unnoticed (and we already know he was noticed).

      Though the truth is that whatever really happened, if we ever find out, one thing’s for sure - being a trump supporter he definitely was, to one degree or another, groomed by stronger sovereign types, there’s a whole pipeline dedicated to it…

      • Eol@sh.itjust.works
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        People underestimate the underground in terms of their play in politics. It’s gotten to the point that our system is fully intertwined with illegal and corrupt lifestyles.

        Pop politics is just giving false hope to a class of people that don’t understand war and crime. The civil war has been here for awhile but people are too naive, even the cops and politicians, to understand. The deaths get passed off as accidents and suicides or blamed on mentally ill. It’s part of the game to make someone go crazy and do shit like this. It’s a common play. It’s to the point I question mass shootings. Are these kids getting used by stronger people? I see a lot of “regular” people played out doing work for stronger people. They are to naive to know what’s happening and how strong people around them can be. There’s players in the game everywhere. From the low streets to the big business and people get so blinded by the false market virtuosity of politics. It’s finished already. Shit our country would collapse if we took out the black market and dark money.

        • DessertStorms
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          Oh, absolutely, take it even further

          It’s gotten to the point that our system is fully intertwined with illegal and corrupt lifestyles.

          I’d say it was designed that way.

          Capitalism is immoral. It encourages greed and corruption, and requires exploitation and oppression to survive, as do those who benefit from it most and make sure it is maintained, which is why it will always decay in to fascism, and all of the violence and manipulation that come with it, including what we’re seeing unfold in front of our eyes…

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        I wonder if he was involved in those pedo hunting groups, and the realization that Trump is a rapist pedo with that 13 year old girl caused his GOP brain to malfunction.

        • DessertStorms
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          I doubt the cognitive dissonance would allow it, if it were that easy, they’d all be getting disillusioned pretty quick…

          • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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            Possibly, but you take someone who is already pretty mentally imbalanced and this is the kind of thing that happens.

            Normal people, even when enraged, don’t take to shooting other humans. It takes someone who is in a bad place to try and pull this off.

            • DessertStorms
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              Gtfoh with your “normal people” ableist nonsense. Never mind that the guy was as average white American man as you can fucking get…

              White supremacist christofascist patriarchal ableist capitalism did this, not mental illness. Privilege and entitlement, and the ability of those in power who manufactured them to use them to control and manipulate certain groups under threat of losing their superiority over others, did this.

              I’m so sick and tired of this fucking “mental illness did it” obtuse bullshit.

              I’ll just leave this here, and I’m out I’m not “debating” this:

              “Are you saying that murderers are right in the head??”

              No there’s definitely something wrong with someone’s way of thinking if they can justify killing innocent people, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a mental illness.

              Extremist beliefs isn’t a mental illness.

              Bigotry isn’t a mental illness.

              Entitlement isn’t a mental illness.

              Hate isn’t a mental illness.

              Having a dysfunctional moral compass isn’t a mental illness.

              We need to stop categorizing all these things as some undefinable “mental illness” and start looking at what we do as a society to develop and justify these things to a degree where people use them to justify killing.

              Yes!

              Dehumanization is something you Have to look for. If the murderer doesn’t see the person they killed as a person, then mental illness is probably not the main factor there.

              Plenty of people murder women, poc, lgbt people, people of other religions etc. because they don’t see them as people.

              Think about genocides - they aren’t perpetrated by big group of people/a government who all got mentally ill together the same way at the same time somehow, they just didn’t consider what they did murder because they didn’t see the victims as people.

              source

              • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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                Yeah, your source is bullshit and you have no experience with this stuff. This is some hardcore quit your bullshit stuff. This entire post of your is nothing but luxury beliefs. Nothing you say is grounded in actual psychology, it’s all a bunch of privileged trash. I can’t believe someone would cite that drivel and act like it’s fact, you are right up there with the MAGA flat earth people.

                Have you see someone descend into the madness of schizophrenia? Nope, you sure have not. How about real depression, not your first world “I am so sad” type that people like you languish in and spout crap of just-feel-better.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    Last I heard from the rumor mill is that he was right leaning but showed signs of disapproval of Trump specifically after he was elected the first time. Something about activism engagements related to stuff that was pretty opposite of whatever Trump wanted.

    I dunno, I haven’t fact checked anything, but I don’t care to. Everyone is already picking his life apart (law enforcement and the public), which IMO, is pretty invasive.

    If the LEOs wanted to know why he did what he did, I’m sure their sharpshooters could have found a way to not end his life in the process of stopping him. IDK, I’m not a sharpshooter either.