ITT: Look at the parents, this kid was just rebelling!
Press X to doubt
Or… He was a conservative that saw MAGA as the existential crisis that it is. He decided that he had nothing left to lose. He went for it.
Let’s be real here. The only shame was that he missed.
I think he died for a cause. But that could just be my bias showing.
I just want to go back in history and ask at what point people would’ve considered it appropriate to use political violence against someone like Hitler, or was it never okay? Like was it post first coup? Post second coup? After invading Poland? Did they need to wait for gas chambers? I’m curious when public sentiment shifted.
Well people tried to kill Hitler loads of times. 42 times according to Wikipedia. First was in 1932, before he became dictator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler?wprov=sfla1
There are some absolutely cunning and insane stories in here. Fascinating.
In a last-ditch attempt, Fabian von Schlabrendorff gave a time bomb camouflaged as a package of two liqueur bottles to an officer in Hitler’s entourage, as a supposed gift to a friend in Germany. The bomb was supposed to explode on the return flight over Poland. The package was placed in the hold of the aircraft, where it iced up, causing the detonator to fail. Realizing the failure, Schlabrendorff immediately flew to Germany and recovered the package before it was discovered.
Max Planck’s son Erwin was also involved in a plot. He was executed for his part despite pleas from his father.
Bitchass conservatives are always pushing for political violence. I’m tired of the left always trying to by the better man.
For much of the populace, sentiment only began to shift when life got harder for them personally. For some, that was when their children were killed in the war, for others it was when food shortages started to hurt, and still others would fully support the reich until it inevitably turned against them. Most personal impact that people felt was brushed off as “patriotic sacrifice” for the greater good. It was a bunch of small things that just piled up over time. Different people had different breaking points. But some people went through the whole war remaining fully supportive of the government.
You have to remember that propaganda was also much more effective then, when the government could fully control all media. Many Nazi supporters at the time had no idea what Hitler was really like or what was going on at concentration camps. The guards for those camps and other SS soldiers were chosen because they met certain loyalty criteria and would not go against orders. But everyone else was either oblivious to the cruelty, fearful of what would happen to their families if they went against the government, or just blissfully unaware and brainwashed by propaganda.
With the Internet today, it should be harder for people to fall for propaganda. The Internet really changes things now. You can see the disinformation influence everywhere but it’s much harder to silence all the dissenters now. There will always be people who refuse to seek answers or listen to opposing viewpoints and there’s not much to be done about that except teach open mindedness to children when they’re young. It’s why the fascists try to hard to simultaneously control and hamstring the education system. Unfortunately, they’ve been at it so long that there’s now a large portion of the population that grew up with poor education and are now easily influenced by the media sources that the fascists control. The propaganda today must focus more on convincing people that there is an existential threat in the form of a group, person, or ideology that only they can stop. They just need to convince enough people that doing evil things for “good” reasons is justified. They’re beginning to reach critical mass of supporters to where they can brazenly try to seize control of the government now, laws be damned. You see them pushing on those legal boundaries much more frequently these days. If they succeed, things will get worse for everyone (including their supporters) when they decide to fully drop their facades and begin doing evil things without any justification besides “because I felt like it”. Leopards will always eat faces, but for some reason people never learn that lesson.
Thanks for the response.
I think the internet is now a double-edged sword, and I can speak to this coming from a former Republican household in the 2000s.
Back then, pre-Facebook (and to at least the very early stages when it was a College-oriented platform), the internet was far less segregated into marketing platforms. You really would be exposed to anything and everything and that, combined with my parents’ upbringing in the 60s really had an impact on our family’s perception of events, including the Iraq War.
Nowadays, marketing algorithms are fine-tuned to preach to the choir and simply create massive echo-chambers. You can see this if you just create a new YouTube account and see the default content that shows up, like Joe Rogan… Just watch let alone like one of his videos, and next you’ll have Jordan Peterson clips filling your feed and as this happens any contrarian viewpoint gets marginalized.
If we had the internet of today back then, I’m not sure my family would break our rural right-wing religious pro-life bubble. It is VERY hard today unless you’re already well-versed in critical-thinking, have a major dose of introspection and humility, and are internet-savvy.
That is a fantastic question. Pretty much everyone agrees that Hitler should have killed in the cradle given hindsight.
When is it moral to kill the motherfucker without having a crystal ball?
Earlier than most people will openly condone given the nature of their State and society.
However, what if that creates a big dumb Hitler martyr that a more effective fascist can wave as a bloody flag and things get worse due to better managed evil?
However, what if that creates a big dumb Hitler martyr that a more effective fascist can wave as a bloody flag and things get worse due to better managed evil?
Yeah I agree, which is why I’m actually in the camp that I’m glad the_dumbass lived. If we can’t defeat this buffoon, then shit, we couldn’t defeat anyone.
Moreover I’d rather see him rot in prison. In order to set this country straight again, he has to be brought down by the Justice system.
People famously tried to kill Hitler many times. Dude was like a cockroach and kept getting away.
Oh sometime between liberating the first camp and he shot himself too soon probably.
I say Wannsee at the latest. WWI would’ve been fair.
I feel that everyone should resist the urge to act like psychics or psychologists right now. We know far too little at this point to speculate on this kids state of mind before or during the shooting.
As we learn more, perhaps that will change, but - and this is the terrible truth - we may never know. and we’re ALL going to have to learn to process and move on from this either way.
Seriously. It might not have been political at all.
When John Hinckley Jr took a shot at Reagan, he was trying to impress Jodie Foster…
Or… He was a conservative that saw MAGA as the existential crisis that it is.
Or he was a conservative and thought that Trump wasn’t racist enough.
Or seen the Epstein stuff, and felt incredibly betrayed.
Former rightist here, I not only got my face eaten by the Fidesz leopards (gutted health-care, gutted job security, gutted disability benefits that are now also harder to get, etc), and I remember the day when I’ve read that Fidesz lowered the age of consent to 12 in case both parties are under 18. I thought a “conservative” party would do the opposite, and raise it to 18 with some exceptions. I remember being so angry I couldn’t sleep that night at all, seen the sun rising, and my luck was that I didn’t have school on that day. And after the whole cHiLd prOteCTion fiasco, one of their politician even married an 18 year old he groomed since she was 14. Many claim the low age of consent of my country is only for close-in-age relationships, but it doesn’t stop much greater age differences, which are dangerously popular, because “boys at my age are stupid and don’t have cars” as some of those teen girls would say, others are being groomed with “but age differences are natural” if they were skeptical and didn’t want to run into such a relationship.
I took the whole “child protection” thing seriously. I knew victims. Many of them were my age. However when I had to realize some was just using it as an issue to get me to vote for them, while they themselves were doing it, often way more publicly than how Trump did it.
Damn…it sucks that I can’t call that idea far fetched lol
A few things, like the shirt he was wearing, makes me wonder if it was Trump’s stance on gun control that triggered this.
According to reports from classmates he failed to make the school rifle team because he was a poor shot - but also the instructor noted that he made “crass jokes” and FWIW got a poor impression of Crooks. I mention that tangentially it could apply to racism or who knows what or who he made the crass jokes about while shooting. Was he joking about shooting minorities or something?
Makes sense, most shooters show warning signs.
This guy looks like a dorkier HP Lovecraft
Also
there have been pro-Trump signs on display in the yard of his family’s home.
Is a much different message than “signs in his yard.” Don’t worry though, I’m sure all of the kid’s life is being scrubbed by every agency in America and in sixty years we’ll know why he really did it.
Because of woke. And
Auntie FaAnne Teepha.Wasn’t she in final fantasy? Ann Elizabeth Tifa - I mean.
Coming into this comment thread relatively late, but I briefly wondered after reading the headline if this was a rebellion against the views his family instilled in him.
Obviously, it’s a heck of a rebellion if that idea holds even an ounce of water, but I could see rebelling against parents, coupled with the existential frustration that most folks feel about the current political situation, paired with the inexperience/poor decision making of youth, or even the beginnings of schizophrenia leading down this path.
Definitely filing that line of thought into the “complete speculation, and almost certainly not what really happened” bin, though.
This guy looks like a dorkier HP Lovecraft
Kinda looks like fetal alcohol syndrome to me.
It is crazy how missing one shot could have changed the course of history. People are really trying to paint this guy as a leftist because of a donation lol.
Do records show that he donated to a progressive PAC? I thought they show a person with the same name donated but that the age was different
Look at the timing - Jan 20th, 2021. The day Biden was sworn in.
$15 is not much and could very well be him delivering on a bet over the election
Or a friend donating in his name as a joke
No. Giving 15$ dollars to a liberal cause is a clear indication that you are a political dissident willing to die for the DNC. End of story.
I mean it doesn’t sound like he has friends, but it is weird that a 16-17 year old would donate on his own. It feels like it would go through his parents. Did they give him a credit card or something? Was it cash?
Coudl have friends online, back when I was 16-17 thats how I was. Mind you im only friends with the ones Ive met IRL at this point but thats because my other groups imploded or went nuts for no reason.
Arma ops group imploded because of a shit Zeus.
And the EU4 group devolved into femcatboy roleplay server, which made me uncomfortable because most of them were like 30.
Yeah that kind of struck me as a potential possibility. Maybe he bet someone that small amount that Biden wouldn’t actually be seated.
The address on the filing has his street address and zip but the wrong city.
Would be common to use the city of Pittsburgh for the suburb of Bethel Park:
(have not looked into the guy nor his possible donations at all myself)
This one has gone back and forth a couple of times, but snopes says it really was him. shrug
I fell into that initially as well, but I checked the FEC filing to get the address, then used the address to check property records, then went back and looked at the interviews with his folks to see their names for reference. The residence is that of his parents, so it seems to be him that donated.
Look at people still arguing about this niggling little detail.
The RW propaganda machine is powerful af.
Wasn’t that $15 from a 69 year old veteran with the same name?
I’ve tried to find sources for this, but all lead into a circle of people just saying this without providing an actual verifiable link or anything.
Edit: This comment from someone was the closest I got: https://lemmy.world/comment/11189733
Eyup
Wasn’t this proven false?
Funny how I heard about the $15 on the news but not about how it turned out to be a better person with the same name.
This has been disproven.
Removed by mod
you know the more you say this the less Tenacious D we get?
Good.
I’m confused.
Maybe he missed on purpose and it was all a ruse to give trump a bump in the polls or demonize the Democrats?
You cant miss like that on purpose. If trump had moved slightly differently the shot would have hit. It was within inches
You know how some hunters want to hunt a particular majestic animal? Except for “majestic”, of course.
Who’s seen the new season of the boys
I feel bad for the yard-neighbor, bet it hurt to get impaled with those signs.
If he could choose, do you think he’d prefer to be impaled by a Biden sign instead?
If he could choose, I think he’d prefer not to be impaled at all. Don’t know him personally though so can’t say for sure.
I know him; he’s into it. Like that.
It’s into him, too.
False flag is a possibility but the US has enough crazy for something like this to just happen.
Evidence or stfu
Evidence for what? I didn’t state any fact. My comment was clear speculation
you want evidence that the USA has crazy in it?! what, are you new to this planet?
Yes, clearly i wanted evidence for the obvious fact and not the conspiracy theory
Here you go!
The State Of Mental Health In America
I’ll give you a freebie from it: over half of adults with a mental illness don’t receive treatment for it. Goooo USA!
Thanks for the evidence of the non-controversial, well established part of the comment
that’s the only part of the comment.
there’s crazy people. End of evidence.
what other part do you think exists?
Read the comment chain again. Use the context clues. I believe in you
deleted by creator
Chill. Dude said it was a possibility.
I’m super disappointed in the dumb conspiracy theories being thrown around with no evidence among the left rn
if there was evidence, it wouldn’t be a theory, would it?
but it wasn’t even that. what’s disappointing are the right wing autists who don’t understand English, like you.
if there was evidence, it wouldn’t be a theory, would it?
that’s not how evidence works
what’s disappointing are the right wing autists who don’t understand English, like you.
Not sure why you think a rightist would be disappointed in the left acting afool. Try thinking critically next time. Nice ableism btw
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A neighbor of the 20-year-old who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump said there have been pro-Trump signs on display in the yard of his family’s home.
Authorities identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as the gunman who opened fired from a rooftop as the former president spoke at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
He was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but records show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on January 20, 2021—the day President Joe Biden was sworn into office.
A neighbor in Bethel Park, the Pittsburgh suburb where Crooks lived, said they saw pro-Trump signs in the family’s yard as recently as a few months ago.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 and worked as a dietary aide at a nursing home less than a mile from his family’s house.
His father Matthew Crooks told CNN late on Saturday that he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” and would not speak publicly about his son until after he talked to law enforcement.
The original article contains 416 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
They found themselves a useful idiot
He did it as a Tiktok challenge.
I just saw a headline on 1440 that the Secret Service around Trump had been increasing security due to an Iranian security threat and that this shooting may be related to that.
I don’t buy it, but do think it is a signal of where our next Middle East War will be.
Middle East III: Ayatollah We’d Be Back.
Because when the Ayatollah wants someone killed he picks a bullied kid who’s also a terrible shot. /s
These conspiracy theorists are so funny sometimes. “Some super bad or powerful person paid/arranged to have Trump killed!” If they’re that powerful, they seriously couldn’t hire anyone else? I mean, you could spend a few extra bucks and get someone that hasn’t been turned down by their local shooting team for being too bad of a shot. If they really wanted someone dead, they wouldn’t have hired a wish.com hitman.
