• AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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    4 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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      4 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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        4 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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        4 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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        4 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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          4 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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          4 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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          4 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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      4 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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      4 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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        4 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.