• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Nutjob, sure, but probably not “right wing.” Here’s the facts as stated on his wikipedia page:

    • registered Republican
    • held conservative views in high school
    • donated to a progressive fund the day Biden was sworn in

    So, he’s conservative and despises Trump. Someone who’s way far to the right wouldn’t donate to a progressive fund. I think he was a relatively moderate Republican who liked the GOP before Trump/MAGA took over, so basically Romney and McCain, not Trump and MTG.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Or he’s a former Bernie supporter who got radicalized after Bernie lost. Your political compass can change very quickly when you’re that young.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Or he’s a former Bernie supporter who got radicalized after Bernie lost.

        Is there anything lemmy won’t blame on Sanders supporters?

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Bernie ran for President in 2020 and the suspect registered Republican in 2021. It’s possible, but that’s only a year from Bernie’s campaign, so it seems unlikely.

        My interpretation given Occam’s Razor is that he was likely conservative who aggressively disagreed with Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would’ve voted for Biden if we was born a year earlier, based on frustration with Trump and Biden’s relatively moderate positions.

    • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He didn’t donate to a progressive fund. That was a 69 year old man, with the same name, in Pittsburgh, not Bethel Park.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            This is a good lesson in how much “research” goes into most breaking news. Those “trusted news sites” just saw a common first and last name and assumed it was the same guy.

            It’s just “Michael Bolton” all over again.

            • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I got this information from other places. It has been circulating for some hours now. However, Looking at it again, for these comments, I realized 15102 is Bethel Park, so it was the shooter, however he made the donation under age, I guess.

              • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                There’s no confirmation of that. This is literally just a “Michael Bolton” situation. It could be him or an unrelated person.

                My point is that the media has repeated it as fact, while the registration information used his full name (including middle) and birthday. Maybe address too (I forget). They just want to stir up drama before confirming anything.

                You learn these things doing genealogy. You need a high number of data points to confirm who someone is. People get all excited if they have the same last name as a famous person. There are literally a million people with similar last names.

                • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  This is actually a good point. I just did some internet searching and found 3 other Thomas/Tom Crooks in the Bethel Park area.