FBI identifies Trump rally shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks <--- Thread is about the perpetrator, the crime, and the motivation, not Trump

[Brihaha]

I'll see if I can find the link, but there was a CNN piece before (or perhaps it was the NY Times one) that made mention of his Dad being a registered Libertarian, and his mom being a Democrat.

So I guess it's technically "possible", but with people who are registered libertarians, they typically don't embody the same level of "Trump following" that staunch GOP conservatives do.

Every single person with whom I am acquainted has suffered familial collateral damage from this Trump nonsense. Every. Single. Person. It was my gut feeling upon hearing the shooter was a registered republican. I merely posited it as a possibility.

Cults were fascinating to me for a couple years. Now they are repulsive to me. I struggle finding adequate words to describe what I see from fellow Americans today. Emotions in motion. I feel like those Boondock Saints today. I mean I'm ready to get busy lol. I have grandkids and I am concerned about their futures. This mass Trump delusion is unsustainable for America. It always has been. There is little substance but the abrasive rhetoric of a self-serving criminal.

Pressure does two things to people. It can cause some to fold. But it causes people like me to focus. I've always done my best under pressure or with the best competition. I feel compelled to do as much as I can to snap Americans out of their Trump haze before it's too late. It's an impotent feeling though because I don't have a huge following here on Christian Forums haha. I'm not into the political scene but maybe I'll go volunteer to help with the election or something. I can no longer sit back reading nonsense without speaking up here. I'm glad I don't do Facebook or Twitter. This forum has enough muck for me and I imagine those bigger sites are worse yet. But I am standing by after yesterday. I will not sit until after the election in November. This business will get out of control. It'll get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

 

[RDKirk]

...from a classmate:

“A quiet kid” is how Sarah D’Angelo, 20, remembered the boy she saw before 7:30 a.m. almost every school day for four years at Bethel Park High School. Organized by their last names, they sat a few chairs apart. She knew him as Tom.
He would arrive on time and spend most of the 20-minute period either finishing homework or playing video games on his computer, which was given to students by the school, she recalled. They hardly talked, D’Angelo said, mostly because it was early and everyone was tired.

“He was nice to anyone he talked to,” D’Angelo said.
Crooks occasionally wore hunting and camouflage-style clothes to class, which D’Angelo said was normal for the area; her high school had a rifle club, after all. In yearbooks from her freshman, sophomore and junior years, Crooks was not pictured as a member of that club — nor any other.

D’Angelo said Crooks did not appear to have many friends, but that he also did not strike her as particularly lonely. He was good at math, “a calculus-type person,” she said.
“There were a few people that were more violent in school,” she said. “He was not one of those kids.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/07/14/thomas-matthew-crooks-trump-shooting-suspect/

Camouflage clothing worn by civilians has been in style for several years now. Kinda annoys me personally--camouflage is "work" attire in my military mind, what we put on when it was time to kill people. But these days, kids everywhere wear it.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Mr. Grzybek (County Councilmen) briefly met the gunman’s parents last year when he was canvassing for his run. He did not recall the exact conversation, but he remembered they seemed pleasant and were open to hear his platform.
The gunman was a registered Republican, his mother was a Democrat and his father a Libertarian, a fairly typical mix for the area, Mr. Grzybek said.

“You’ve got a large spattering of different backgrounds and ideals, and definitely have a lot of mixed households in Bethel Park,” he said.

Here’s What Is Known About the Suspect Who Tried to Assassinate Trump

Authorities identified the gunman as a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pa., a town about an hour’s drive from the site of the shooting.

www.nytimes.com

I guess it was the NY Times article after all, thanks for finding and posting.

 

[Chesterton]

Every single person with whom I am acquainted has suffered familial collateral damage from this Trump nonsense. Every. Single. Person.

Can you explain what "familial collateral damage" means?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Every single person with whom I am acquainted has suffered familial collateral damage from this Trump nonsense. Every. Single. Person. It was my gut feeling upon hearing the shooter was a registered republican. I merely posited it as a possibility.

Cults were fascinating to me for a couple years. Now they are repulsive to me. I struggle finding adequate words to describe what I see from fellow Americans today. Emotions in motion. I feel like those Boondock Saints today. I mean I'm ready to get busy lol. I have grandkids and I am concerned about their futures. This mass Trump delusion is unsustainable for America. It always has been. There is little substance but the abrasive rhetoric of a self-serving criminal.

Pressure does two things to people. It can cause some to fold. But it causes people like me to focus. I've always done my best under pressure or with the best competition. I feel compelled to do as much as I can to snap Americans out of their Trump haze before it's too late.

With all due respect though, if getting into politics (or getting into political causes in the name of unity) is what you feel is your calling, then it'll need to be a problem that's address from both ends if bringing the temperature down is really your goal.

While Trump's rhetoric could drive a wedge between people. (and has, as you've noted)

We have to hit the rewind button and consider the escalating patterns of delusion going back to the year 2000, and look at the patterns.

It's become increasingly "acceptable" to say downright nasty things about "the other team's guy", from the hyperbolic, to the downright conspiratorial.

Over half of democrats in the early 2000's thought that Bush was behind 9/11. (per Washington post)
(and people used the "He's a Nazi/He's a fascist" rhetoric against him as well)

That one got so bad that the DNC Chairman, 3 Senators, and a dozen Democratic house reps both attended the premier of (and promoted the film) "Fahrenheit 911" (a goofy Michael Moore conspiracy movie)

Over half of republicans in 2015 embraced "birther" conspiracies about Obama. (per NBC)

Democrats said all kinds of terrible things about Mitt Romney (trying to draw parallels between him and Nazism), and when Romney publicly asked them to stop trivializing Nazism for political gain, they piled on even more and started with the "Here's his 47% comment (out of context), if you support Romney, you're a racist"

40% of republicans engaged in various forms of election denial (to the point where it became a "democracy only counts as long as our guy wins and the capitol riots ensued")




So, in a nutshell, if you're looking to get the types of people you're referring to "off the Trump highway", you've gotta give them an "off ramp". And that off ramp has to involve still letting them vote for conservative policies on things like taxation/abortion/etc... without comparing the guy they're voting for to the worst political actors in recorded history. The only option can't be "you abandon most of your positions, and come 80% of the way to us on the spectrum", that hasn't worked.

(and this advice goes for the GOP team as well, we know there's some zany people on the left as well, if you want to bring them back into the Overton Window, you gotta let them have an option that lets them still vote for some progressive policies without comparing their positions to a slippery slope to "commies and groomers"



More succinctly put, if you shut down all forms of reasonable opposition, that only leaves people with the unreasonable choices. If you don't want people running into the welcoming arms of a Donald Trump, don't call them racists, nazis, fascists when they vote for a George Bush or a Mitt Romney.

 

[JosephZ]

...from a classmate:

“A quiet kid” is how Sarah D’Angelo, 20, remembered the boy she saw before 7:30 a.m. almost every school day for four years at Bethel Park High School. Organized by their last names, they sat a few chairs apart. She knew him as Tom.
He would arrive on time and spend most of the 20-minute period either finishing homework or playing video games on his computer, which was given to students by the school, she recalled. They hardly talked, D’Angelo said, mostly because it was early and everyone was tired.

“He was nice to anyone he talked to,” D’Angelo said.
Crooks occasionally wore hunting and camouflage-style clothes to class, which D’Angelo said was normal for the area; her high school had a rifle club, after all. In yearbooks from her freshman, sophomore and junior years, Crooks was not pictured as a member of that club — nor any other.

D’Angelo said Crooks did not appear to have many friends, but that he also did not strike her as particularly lonely. He was good at math, “a calculus-type person,” she said.
“There were a few people that were more violent in school,” she said. “He was not one of those kids.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/07/14/thomas-matthew-crooks-trump-shooting-suspect/

Here are some additional classmates' recollections of the shooter.

Why Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to assassinate Donald Trump is a mystery to investigators and his ex-classmates

Mark Sigafoos remembered Crooks as the quiet but friendly kid he shared two classes with at Bethel Park.

“He was very kind,” Sigafoos said Sunday, by phone. “He was a nerdy kid, but I don’t think he was as harshly bullied as some people are saying. He never wore trench coats or anything of the sort to school.”

The thought that the mild-mannered student would try to kill former President Trump was difficult to process.

“I feel like this is one of those things that you wouldn’t expect from him,” Sigafoos said. “No one that I know said they ever found him to be a creepy, loner kind of guy.”

Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.”

Another former classmate did not share this view.

Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements - but they shed no light on his actions Saturday.

"He definitely was conservative," he said. "It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate."

Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal.

"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."

 

[Brihaha]

With all due respect though, if getting into politics (or getting into political causes in the name of unity) is what you feel is your calling, then it'll need to be a problem that's address from both ends if bringing the temperature down is really your goal.

While Trump's rhetoric could drive a wedge between people. (and has, as you've noted)

We have to hit the rewind button and consider the escalating patterns of delusion going back to the year 2000, and look at the patterns.

It's become increasingly "acceptable" to say downright nasty things about "the other team's guy", from the hyperbolic, to the downright conspiratorial.

Over half of democrats in the early 2000's thought that Bush was behind 9/11. (per Washington post)
(and people used the "He's a Nazi/He's a fascist" rhetoric against him as well)

That one got so bad that the DNC Chairman, 3 Senators, and a dozen Democratic house reps both attended the premier of (and promoted the film) "Fahrenheit 911" (a goofy Michael Moore conspiracy movie)

Over half of republicans in 2015 embraced "birther" conspiracies about Obama. (per NBC)

Democrats said all kinds of terrible things about Mitt Romney (trying to draw parallels between him and Nazism), and when Romney publicly asked them to stop trivializing Nazism for political gain, they piled on even more and started with the "Here's his 47% comment (out of context), if you support Romney, you're a racist"

40% of republicans engaged in various forms of election denial (to the point where it became a "democracy only counts as long as our guy wins and the capitol riots ensued")




So, in a nutshell, if you're looking to get the types of people you're referring to "off the Trump highway", you've gotta give them an "off ramp". And that off ramp has to involve still letting them vote for conservative policies on things like taxation/abortion/etc... without comparing the guy they're voting for to the worst political actors in recorded history. The only option can't be "you abandon most of your positions, and come 80% of the way to us on the spectrum", that hasn't worked.

(and this advice goes for the GOP team as well, we know there's some zany people on the left as well, if you want to bring them back into the Overton Window, you gotta let them have an option that lets them still vote for some progressive policies without comparing their positions to a slippery slope to "commies and groomers"



More succinctly put, if you shut down all forms of reasonable opposition, that only leaves people with the unreasonable choices. If you don't want people running into the welcoming arms of a Donald Trump, don't call them racists, nazis, fascists when they vote for a George Bush or a Mitt Romney.

Well we have been facing unreasonable choices for years. Nothing I can do will change this. I'm not calling anyone who votes for conservatives other than Trump anything. I understand your point but much of it doesn't apply to me. That Trump feller is the one who applied those techniques to control the weak republican caucus.

Reality is an off ramp but it's not chosen by most Trump voters. I lived a great deal of my early adult life in the denial of alcoholism myself. I am not visiting that unreality again today. I can't abide it. I'm not chasing people thru that world to change them. Not everything people post will we act on. Sometimes I just vent. I want to volunteer for elections but I doubt I will. I want to open up eyes of the deluded or addicted. But I doubt I can. That shooting yesterday really impacted my psyche. I know this will get worse if we don't turn Donald Trump loose. I know that is the only hope for America to recover from this nightmare. It has been strongly impressed on my consciousness throughout the course of last nite and today. It seems odd that everyone else can't see the obvious. But like the band on the fateful Titanic, Americans will simply politic louder and with more emotion as our titan of democracy slowly sinks.

But in pausing here, I realize again that I don't need to worry about it if I choose not to. My faith is such a blessing. But it's still in its youth and I forget the problems of this world are not my true concern. I thank you for your reply. It inspired me to let it go. For today haha. Peace

 

[Chesterton]

Can you explain what "familial collateral damage" means?

I guess not.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Well we have been facing unreasonable choices for years. Nothing I can do will change this. I'm not calling anyone who votes for conservatives other than Trump anything. I understand your point but much of it doesn't apply to me. That Trump feller is the one who applied those techniques to control the weak republican caucus.

No we haven't

George W Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney were all perfectly respectable candidates. People may have not agreed with their policies (depending on which side a person was on), but they were perfectly qualified and reasonable candidates.

Nobody should've been getting called any sort of name for supporting any one of them. (but they were)


....unless someone is so narcissistic to believe that "reasonable choices" should span the spectrum of "exactly like me" <-> "mostly like me"

Reality is an off ramp but it's not chosen by most Trump voters.

But are you really offering them the off-ramp of "reality" as a stand-alone option, or is that off-ramp coming with a bunch of baggage?

Yes, the people who supported an election denier were engaging in some avoidance of reality, but if their only other option is "you have to bend a knee to all of these other progressive positions because democracy is at stake", then it's a false choice.


Take this example.

If "Dave Jones" is in favor of addressing climate change, supports gun control, supports a woman's right to choose, supports gay marriage, and supports a $20 minimum wage, but has said "I know I'll win big, and if I lose, it's because they cheated, and that means this whole thing was rigged!"

Vs.

"Tom Smith" who says "abortions should be banned", "people should be allowed to own a bazooka", "climate change is a hoax"...but, says "but if I lose, I'll concede the election, Dave Jones won fair and square, it's important we listen to the will of the people"


Would it be fair to bash you as being "detached from reality" if you made the choice to cast a ballot for Dave Jones?

 

[iluvatar5150]

No we haven't

George W Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney were all perfectly respectable candidates. People may have not agreed with their policies (depending on which side a person was on), but they were perfectly qualified and reasonable candidates.

Nobody should've been getting called any sort of name for supporting any one of them. (but they were)


....unless someone is so narcissistic to believe that "reasonable choices" should span the spectrum of "exactly like me" <-> "mostly like me"


But are you really offering them the off-ramp of "reality" as a stand-alone option, or is that off-ramp coming with a bunch of baggage?

Yes, the people who supported an election denier were engaging in some avoidance of reality, but if their only other option is "you have to bend a knee to all of these other progressive positions because democracy is at stake", then it's a false choice.


Take this example.

If "Dave Jones" is in favor of addressing climate change, supports gun control, supports a woman's right to choose, supports gay marriage, and supports a $20 minimum wage, but has said "I know I'll win big, and if I lose, it's because they cheated, and that means this whole thing was rigged!"

Vs.

"Tom Smith" who says "abortions should be banned", "people should be allowed to own a bazooka", "climate change is a hoax"...but, says "but if I lose, I'll concede the election, Dave Jones won fair and square, it's important we listen to the will of the people"


Would it be fair to bash you as being "detached from reality" if you made the choice to cast a ballot for Dave Jones?

Your political history doesn’t extend back far enough. Limbaugh and Gingrich ratcheted things up before the current crops of Dems did, and the fundies on the Right have been preaching that Dems are literal baby killers for 40 years.

The only example of what you describe that I’ve come across with any regularity is people saying they’d consider Dems if they weren’t baby killers.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Your political history doesn’t extend back far enough. Limbaugh and Gingrich ratcheted things up before the current crops of Dems did, and the fundies on the Right have been preaching that Dems are literal baby killers for 40 years.

The only example of what you describe that I’ve come across with any regularity is people saying they’d consider Dems if they weren’t baby killers.

The pro-life fundamentalists weren't engaging in full blown conspiracy theories though in the 80's (at least not on a large scale)

If they believe that a fetus in the womb is a human baby, and abortion is killing that baby, that may be a stance you disagree with, but it isn't a wild conspiracy theory.

The "entertaining of ridiculous conspiracy theories ", on a large scale, started in 2000. (or perhaps we can include JFK conspiracies if we want to lump in ones that didn't have a huge impact on our democratic norms)

 

[wing2000]

Well we have been facing unreasonable choices for years. Nothing I can do will change this. I'm not calling anyone who votes for conservatives other than Trump anything. I understand your point but much of it doesn't apply to me. That Trump feller is the one who applied those techniques to control the weak republican caucus.

Reality is an off ramp but it's not chosen by most Trump voters. I lived a great deal of my early adult life in the denial of alcoholism myself. I am not visiting that unreality again today. I can't abide it. I'm not chasing people thru that world to change them. Not everything people post will we act on. Sometimes I just vent. I want to volunteer for elections but I doubt I will. I want to open up eyes of the deluded or addicted. But I doubt I can. That shooting yesterday really impacted my psyche. I know this will get worse if we don't turn Donald Trump loose. I know that is the only hope for America to recover from this nightmare. It has been strongly impressed on my consciousness throughout the course of last nite and today. It seems odd that everyone else can't see the obvious. But like the band on the fateful Titanic, Americans will simply politic louder and with more emotion as our titan of democracy slowly sinks.

But in pausing here, I realize again that I don't need to worry about it if I choose not to. My faith is such a blessing. But it's still in its youth and I forget the problems of this world are not my true concern. I thank you for your reply. It inspired me to let it go. For today haha. Peace

By all acounts (High School, family, employer ) there seems to be no warning signs. Perhaps his mobile phone content will provide some clues.

 

[iluvatar5150]

The pro-life fundamentalists weren't engaging in full blown conspiracy theories though in the 80's (at least not on a large scale)

You obviously didn’t grow up in that environment. I did. Not only were they engaging in full blown conspiracies then, they were much worse about it. They’re actually more sane now, by a significant margin.

Remember: the 80’s were the height of the satanic panic, creationism, and end times eschatology; and then abortion was poured on top. The fundy right was absolutely swimming in crazy back then.

It’s probably true that that group’s conspiracies are more partisan in nature now, but, on average, they’re not crazier. Not even close.

If they believe that a fetus in the womb is a human baby, and abortion is killing that baby, that may be a stance you disagree with, but it isn't a wild conspiracy theory.

I didn’t say it was a conspiracy theory, but it does lead to some pretty extreme conclusions.

The "entertaining of ridiculous conspiracy theories ", on a large scale, started in 2000. (or perhaps we can include JFK conspiracies if we want to lump in ones that didn't have a huge impact on our democratic norms)

That’s an artifact of technology. By 2000, right-wing media had been in full swing for several years and the internet was taking off, which allowed the crazy stuff to spread faster than when it was spread in print. Limbaugh spent years in the 90’s pushing the claim that the Clintons had Vince Foster (and others) killed.

 

[rjs330]

It's really not a competition friend.
Until now I reckon. This is the Trump effect on America that people keep ignoring. We are supposed to be Americans on the same team. Not arguing about the amounts of blame to cast. You either accept this behavior or you don't. Many trumpers have demonstrated this political violence is acceptable and many progressives likely have to. We can never hope to stop the unnecessary political violence if we idolize those who inspire such behavior. I don't vote for progressives or Trumps. It is counterproductive to the needs of my neighbors and me.

Let me remind you what you said.

"Maybe the shooter has seen his family torn apart by devotion to Donald Trump."

You tossed out a family torn apart by Trump. You don't expect a counter.

The lefts affect on America has been far more divisive than anything Trump has done. It's what people keep ignoring. The never ending assault ON Trump. The never ending politics of division by the left.

Yes we are supposed to be on the same team, but I've watched you and read your posts and you have done nothing but cast blame. While at the dame time totally ignore the politics of division and rhetoric from those on the left who have been far more assaulting and violent over the last four years.

No I don't like the way Trump talks. He's rude and crude.

And there are many on the right who have said they don't like it either. You can find a number of my posts saying so. But you have totally ignored all the stuff from the left. You honestly have no credibility.

 

[rjs330]

Every single person with whom I am acquainted has suffered familial collateral damage from this Trump nonsense.

But why blame Trump? You could just as easily blame the progressive ideology. The Trump haters. The progressives who couldn't stand the man and the conservative success. It tells us where your heart and mind is at. I suspect progressive, leftist ideology was just as much to blame as Trump support.

 

[rjs330]

With all due respect though, if getting into politics (or getting into political causes in the name of unity) is what you feel is your calling, then it'll need to be a problem that's address from both ends if bringing the temperature down is really your goal.

While Trump's rhetoric could drive a wedge between people. (and has, as you've noted)

We have to hit the rewind button and consider the escalating patterns of delusion going back to the year 2000, and look at the patterns.

It's become increasingly "acceptable" to say downright nasty things about "the other team's guy", from the hyperbolic, to the downright conspiratorial.

Over half of democrats in the early 2000's thought that Bush was behind 9/11. (per Washington post)
(and people used the "He's a Nazi/He's a fascist" rhetoric against him as well)

That one got so bad that the DNC Chairman, 3 Senators, and a dozen Democratic house reps both attended the premier of (and promoted the film) "Fahrenheit 911" (a goofy Michael Moore conspiracy movie)

Over half of republicans in 2015 embraced "birther" conspiracies about Obama. (per NBC)

Democrats said all kinds of terrible things about Mitt Romney (trying to draw parallels between him and Nazism), and when Romney publicly asked them to stop trivializing Nazism for political gain, they piled on even more and started with the "Here's his 47% comment (out of context), if you support Romney, you're a racist"

40% of republicans engaged in various forms of election denial (to the point where it became a "democracy only counts as long as our guy wins and the capitol riots ensued")




So, in a nutshell, if you're looking to get the types of people you're referring to "off the Trump highway", you've gotta give them an "off ramp". And that off ramp has to involve still letting them vote for conservative policies on things like taxation/abortion/etc... without comparing the guy they're voting for to the worst political actors in recorded history. The only option can't be "you abandon most of your positions, and come 80% of the way to us on the spectrum", that hasn't worked.

(and this advice goes for the GOP team as well, we know there's some zany people on the left as well, if you want to bring them back into the Overton Window, you gotta let them have an option that lets them still vote for some progressive policies without comparing their positions to a slippery slope to "commies and groomers"



More succinctly put, if you shut down all forms of reasonable opposition, that only leaves people with the unreasonable choices. If you don't want people running into the welcoming arms of a Donald Trump, don't call them racists, nazis, fascists when they vote for a George Bush or a Mitt Romney.

Rob I know we don't agree.on everything and that's okay by me. THIS is what I have been talking about. BRAVO, BRAVO!!

 

[Brihaha]

Let me remind you what you said.

"Maybe the shooter has seen his family torn apart by devotion to Donald Trump."

You tossed out a family torn apart by Trump. You don't expect a counter.

The lefts affect on America has been far more divisive than anything Trump has done. It's what people keep ignoring. The never ending assault ON Trump. The never ending politics of division by the left.

Yes we are supposed to be on the same team, but I've watched you and read your posts and you have done nothing but cast blame. While at the dame time totally ignore the politics of division and rhetoric from those on the left who have been far more assaulting and violent over the last four years.

No I don't like the way Trump talks. He's rude and crude.

And there are many on the right who have said they don't like it either. You can find a number of my posts saying so. But you have totally ignored all the stuff from the left. You honestly have no credibility.

The rhetoric of the left is tame. They haven't inspired insurrections or early morning hammer attacks. Since Donald Trump arrived on the scene he has only exacerbated this rhetoric and now we commonly see violence. It's not a mere coincidence. Trump inspires this violence to meander across the realm of talk and into action. I never claimed Trump invented political violence or that democrats never behave inappropriately. They seem to actually hold their politicians accountable for their behavior though. I liked Al Franken. But they found an inappropriate picture of him and he was booted. See any contrast between the parties there? Republicans tossed Liz Cheney for having the prudence and fortitude to speak truth about Mr Trump. I'm sorry you are so offended by my honesty. My advice would be to stop replying to me and reading my posts. I'm encouraged you at least have a reaction to my comments. It means they reach your conscious awareness and you must have had to read them to experience the reaction. I don't care about anyone's crocodile tears. They don't confront me lol.

 

[Brihaha]

But why blame Trump? You could just as easily blame the progressive ideology. The Trump haters. The progressives who couldn't stand the man and the conservative success. It tells us where your heart and mind is at. I suspect progressive, leftist ideology was just as much to blame as Trump support.

I blame the idolization of Trump because that is the catalyst that has raised the bar on political rhetoric and political violence. The left has played a role in allowing this ratcheting up of political tension, I concede this. My point is before Trump the violence hadn't escalated. Now it is desired. I see trumpers online cheering for the violence and clamoring for more chaos. You can play make believe and i know you are but what am I all you want while America drowns. I will not.

 

[rjs330]

didn’t say it was a conspiracy theory, but it does lead to some pretty extreme conclusions.

We've believed that for decades. It's not a conspiracy theory. Believing that can lead to conclusions that would not be extreme in any other circumstance.

There have been people who have acted out in extreme ways. Such as bombing clinics etc. But we also had people.who believed all police were hunting down black men and tried to burn the police alive. Also leading to police assassinations and the burning down of businesses etc.

I wonder what some leftists would do if they believed that (some on the right were murdering people in pregnancy caring centers).

I don't want to turn this into an abortion debate. But when people believe children are being killed you can expect some to react wrongly. Just like some reacted wrongly over the belief cops were murdering black.men and getting away with it.

Both sides would be wrong to react by destruction and murder.

 

[RDKirk]

Your political history doesn’t extend back far enough. Limbaugh and Gingrich ratcheted things up before the current crops of Dems did, and the fundies on the Right have been preaching that Dems are literal baby killers for 40 years.

The only example of what you describe that I’ve come across with any regularity is people saying they’d consider Dems if they weren’t baby killers.

That's when it started.