Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas did that a long time ago. He documents that Kansas used to be a very progressive and populist area but Republican politicians used cultural wedges and racial appeals to break up the old classes based New Deal consensus while Republican politicians would actually vote on things that directly harmed their constituents self interest.

Frank ends being a bit befuddled why people would so this and he leaves it on a bit of a bamboozled theory that Republicans hype up the cultural wedges to trick people into voting against their economic self interests.

Others have put forth the 'psychic wages of whiteness' theory that the people aren't actually being fooled to vote against their perceived economic interests. Their voting for their perceived economic interests, it's just that their perception involves making sure the economic/gender/etc caste system stays in place even if lower class whites are in a strictly worst economic position.

What specific aspect of the Dayton shooter do we have our heads in the sand about?

I know Elizabeth Warren like to brag about having a plan for everything, but if one of those plans was "kill your sister and her boyfriend and seven other people for no ****ing reason" I absolutely denounce that ****.

What happens if the left just let Trump build the wall, and tore it down when they came to office? Better yet, what if the some on the left did not call the wall racist, but still opposed it?

I do not know what you know, or do not know fly. I do know, anything you you read about it, you will find a link to an imaginary righwinger podcast. I know microbet does not know anything about the shooter except he might have killed his sister, and that he is white.

This happened yesterday. My head is in the sand? I'm not watching TV and haven't seen it in the forum. Did this socialist have a manifesto? I'm gonna check this forum - I usually look at subscribed thread so I don't see new ones right away.

The point is, no one is talking about the pro-socialist motivations, it's why you have not heard anything. But you know everything about the white supremacist shooter, and even read his manifesto. However, you were quick to dissociate a political motive to the Dayton shooter, despite not hearing much about him, and him using a lot of left-wing rhetoric, including saying he wont wait around for socialism to happen. It's just you are causally dismissive of potential non right wing extremism/violence.

Ok, so he called himself a socialist and wanted to vote for Elizabeth Warren. And he was a terrible person who had a history of making lists of people he know (women/girls mostly) that he wanted to kill. Yes, socialists can be awful people. But his actions weren't about socialism and as Fly pointed out there's nothing that Elizabeth Warren did that led this guy to shoot up a bar.

As I said before, some mass shootings are politically motivated and others aren't. It's really quite possible that a Trump supporter kills people and that it would have nothing to do with Trump. But that's not the case when the dude spells out Trump with assault rifles and has a manifesto that says he wants to repel the invasion of Hispanics.

Yeah there's also a quite a bit of youdapuppetism, when you accuse the other side of what they're accusing you of regardless of how absurd it is.

Grunching but eco-fascism just means that part of the justification for the fascist beliefs is that the environment can't support the undesirables. It has little to nothing to do with being an environmentalist or an eco-terrorist. You're saying as much in the 1st paragraph; this is just nomenclature confusion.

The reason I read the manifesto is because it was linked IN THIS THREAD.

I've got a very clear explanation for why I think the dude with the manifesto that said he wanted to stop Hispanics from being alive in this country had political motives.

You guys keep thinking you have gotchas but you don't.

Like the guy who attacked the private prison holding the detained migrants? HE HAD A POLITICAL MOTIVE!!!!!!! There, I admit it, a Leftist had a political motive for violence.

You just spent most of the day arguing that rhetoric drives people to do this stuff, even if it's not implicit calls to violence. Like fear of immigration. You do not think fear of Trump and fear of racist might lead someone down the same path of violence? Further, you automatically know Dayton was not politically motivated, and even though the racist might have had other issues going on that drove him to carry out his racist attack, racism was it.


Again, I do not think either of them were ultimately caused by ideology.

I mean, you could argue that Hitler was really just mad he didn't get into art school.

At some point when someone says they are murdering for clearly articulated ideological reasons, you have to take them at face value.

Well hold on now, let's not rush to judgement here. There will be a court case and we can let the justice system run it's course so we can find out more about the motive.

(I'm joking, and hopefully Kel can have a laugh at this juxtaposed to another recent issue we interacted )

They are rationalizations. You ever deal with someone who has diagnosed, or undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder? They will warp their entire world view, beyond and logic and reason, so they are not wrong in their head. Hitler, or any mass murderer does the same thing. They start with a a deeply held belief, and essentially rationalize away any contradictory evidence to appease the cognitive dissonance that leads them to possibly conclude they are wrong, and it's impossible to convince them otherwise.

Well you don't think socialism caused this guy to shoot up a bar, so you're half right.

That guy who shot the congressman who was a Bernie supporter? Yeah, I reckon he may have fit your description of being afraid of Trump/Trumpism.

Are you really not capable of understanding the difference between "SOME violence is driven by political rhetoric" and "ALL violence is driven by political rhetoric"?

In this story what is Hitler's deeply held belief?

You are still not understanding my point. You automatically assume it was not politically motivated violence, shows a bias...despite there being potential red flags for that.

I rather not say because it's a not a nice thing to say.

Potential red flag is a bit redundant. I mean obviously there are potential red flags. But are there any actual red flags? What are those red flags? That he kept lists of women he wanted to kill? That he said he would vote for Elizabeth Warren? Is that a red flag that he was going to shoot up a bar and kill his sister?

I don't see the connection.

You see that I'm not afraid to call leftist violence violence right?

Just explain to me how this leftist who committed violence was committing leftist violence.

We can all take it. Go ahead.

His quote about not waiting around for idiots to figure it out, and saying that he is going to hell and being rather outspoken politically.

You're suggesting that he was committing suicide because he was so despondent because the world is so Trumpy and unsocialist?

Maybe.

If he decided to take as many random people (and his sister) out at the same time though, that's just him being an ******* and a monster. If he had shot up a country club or a golf course I'd go along with that part being political.

Dude who wanted there to be no living Hispanics in the US made his motives very clear.

If your argument is now down to the "ultimate cause" of the El Paso shooter not necessarily being ideology, then you've backed yourself into quite a specious position

Is it really that important that we establish if it's 50/50, 60/40, 70/30 or whatever? This squabbling is ****ing stupid. The guy wrote a manifesto, it's clear what his motive and intent was, and it's clear he's mentally unstable

It's also clear that he was obsessed with Trump, and Trump never makes it clear that violence is wrong. He feeds on that **** in his rallies. He makes every effort to fuel the energy that revs up his supporters, and this mother ****ing piece of **** felt every bit of tacit approval in Trump's chosen language. That is the point

Even if you were to try and flip this on the left because this other nutjob in Ohio wanted to vote for Warren, the argument doesn't ****ing work. Warren doesn't hold rallies and imply any sort of violent behavior of any sort of kind is acceptable in any sort of way. We can all joke that she wants to take billionaires to the guillotine, but that's part of the point too...It's clear she's never going to implicitly or explicitly joke about such a thing so as to tacitly approve violence. Do you seriously not understand that?

I do not care if you can take it or not, I do not say things like that.

Besides, you think you have a gotcha. But it's the narcissism and/or other personality disorders that causes that stuff. If Hitler was not a narcissist, or suffered from some other pathological personality issues, he could have had that view, and not become a mass murderer. The lack of empathy, and the inability to critically think, and the inability to recognize his evilness led to mass murder, just like every other mass murderer. On the flip side, he could have those personality issues, and ascribed to a different hateful view....and ended up a mass murderer, or at least committed acts of violence, up to and including murder. That does not excuse, or justifies the behavior, deep down they know they are wrong, they are just unwilling to admit to themselves. These people have serious pathological issues.