the media:
we’ll stop naming school shooters due to copycat killers
also the media:
his name was thomas matthew and here’s a 90 minute special about his preferred breakfast cereal
👀 👀 👀
If this encourages these psychos to stop shooting children and shoot politicians instead, I’ll take that trade.
I’ll say the name of anyone that takes a shot at a fascist, for any reason. Even being the wrong kind of fascist.
I’ve always said we need a Walter Audisio day as a national holiday.
Like the guy who liked Hitler.
you know what, fuck yeah. People can only afford so many bullets these days, so just like Halloween warnings avout drugs and the reality of who the fuck would waste their hard earned drug money on random kids, why should anyone waste bullet money on them either. shoot a politician, save a child.
Did the media ever really say they’d stop naming school shooters??
Also, I’m told this wasn’t a school shooting.
I know of one who should have been in school
The media is not one thing. Media is plural. Good luck getting “the media” to agree on anything.
They sure can agree on a few things:
- Ads make money.
- More ads make more money.
- Money.
- More money.
- 🦀 money money money 🦀
But are they concerned with making money? 😁
If they’re privately held, yes.
If they’re publicly traded, yes.
If they’re publicly funded, also yes, but only because they wouldn’t exist otherwise.Even if they don’t say it, it’s always a priority :)
There are several large nonprofit media corporations such as NPR.
Yet I feel like every time I listen to them they’re basically running an ad for a movie/TV show/book through a fluff interview with someone who worked on it.
But there is no incentive to get more money than they need to operate, because the shareholders and board don’t profit from it personally. NPR income is spent over 92% on program funding and 7% on administrative.
It’s basically run the same way as Wikipedia. If enough people donated, there would be no ads at all.
They run programming that they suspect will get them money, either through donations or government funding- because for those working to get raises the organization needs to have money. (As well as other reasons of course)
I vaguely remember a pinky swear.
For like 2 weeks and they went back to it
Wish.com Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t shoot up a school though
I guess they made the call that releasing this information is the lesser of two evils, the other one being to withhold it and to let speculation run wild in a heated political climate, in which one side is not shy about threats of violence.
Who ever kills Trump will get an entire movie about them.
Noticed this too. They just plaster his face and have analysis and stories all over youtube and news. I thought US are already over this yet here we are.
Yeah, wouldn’t that be a crying shame, this time.
The more we know, the more this looks to me like a suicide by cop that wanted (and failed) to leave a huge thing done so people remembered him.
Which is definitely why the media is posting his picture and personal details everywhere right? To make sure other people aren’t persuaded to seek fame in the same way.
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The guy tried (and almost managed) to kill an ex-president and candidate for a second term. Of course the media is going to cover all the shit they can. It gives them clicks and that’s all that matter.
On the other handl, apparently, the guy had some mental health issues was bullied and honestly, what other outcome can you expect if not a very fast death when you try to do what he did in the way he did it?
Either he was out of his mind and was completely delusional, or was trying to leave the world with a huge kill in his name to be remembered.
Edit: typo
I absolutely agree, but I think it’s important to neither glorify nor demonize the attacker. This isn’t a route we should keep open to gain fame/infamy.
If there’s one guarantee in this world, it’s that shooting someplace up will always get your name in the news.
Although in the US it’s so common you’ll be forgotten in days unless the target is somebody famous.
Good. Let’s keep running that so the famous people are the ones getting shot. Not our nations children in schools 😊
Welcome to late stage Capitalism.
You’re not wrong, but it can be put even more succinctly: “But, money!”
He was a self proclaimed Pedo Hunter
That explains his target
Zing!
Not even a zing, it’s a sad fact
That’s exactly what Trump heard on that stage.
I keep hearing this but what’s the source?
The only place I’ve seen that is screenshots of clearly fake Instagram account bios.
Here is my irresponsible speculation: kid did it to get back at his dad. Dad was a republican flying trump signs in the yard, mom is registered democratic. Kid grows up wearing hunting outfits to school, trying to get on the shooting team, getting bullied (even after that time he tried to fit in by getting on the antitrump bandwagon following j6), trying to be the version of manliness his conservative father believes in, seaking his father’s approval, and paying the price socially with his peers. But as much as he tries, and fails, to get dad’s approval, mom is always there for him. Mom is a dem, probably secretly, with dad forcing strict “traditional” family roles (hence the signs in the yard, mom probably didn’t agree with but was powerless to stop). Kid seems to fit the stereotype of young man, bullied in school, working a dead end job, few if any friends, no future to speak of, just generally mentally unstable, ripe for suicide by cop alreadt. Then something happens, dad hits mom, dad cheats on mom, dad screams at kid calling him a loser and also yells at mom for rasing a mommas boy, something like that. Kid snaps, betrayed by his father again, but also protective of his mom who was always there for him. Kid decides rather than killing his dad (either because of unshakable childhood fear, or a desire to cause more pain to his father then death would afford), he would kill something his dad loved more than anything, more than his dad loved his mom, and especially more than his dad loved him. He’d kill dad’s god king Trump, and go out along with him. His dad would lose his hero, and the world would know his dad was responsible because he failed as a father, and thus his father would be the greatest traitor to the Maga movement ever.
I base this on no evidence other than the couple of facts we know about voter registrations and the yard signs and the like. Again this is just my speculation, which it is completely irresponsible to engage in right now (fun though!).
really thought you were going to end that with the source of the truma being because in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell.
We really need users like that on Lemmy to replicate the positive aspects of the Reddit community that are worth bringing over. Something original to here, hopefully.
I base this on no evidence other than the fact that in nineteen ninety eight the undertaker threw mankind off hеll in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer’s table.
Your chair must have massive armrests
Seems as reasonable as most other theories
Like you already said, you’re obviously speculating, but I think you might be onto something re: the dad. Dad trauma combined with suicidal ideation…it’s plausible and way more reasonable a motive than a lot of the stuff out there.
You should write… because you basically nailed a believable story here.
It very well could be that. It could also be a girl told him she’d let him touch her boobies for 10 seconds if he shot Trump.
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.
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?
Depends on the country
In Germany:
Communists and Anarchists: Around 1920, when the SA was founded
Social democrats: Depends on the „type“ of social democrat. The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the social democratic militia, expected their leaders to start a coup in 1933
Conservatives: 1939, when the war started (at least those, that still were conservatives and didn‘t join the Nazis)
Monarchists: 1942, when it became visible, that Hitler couldn‘t win the war (at least those, that still were monarchists and didn‘t join the Nazis)
Just as a little addendum here is a list of assassination attempts on hitler
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…
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There is no need to bring psychology here at all.
how did you read me saying, “I feel that everyone should resist the urge to act like … psychologists,” and think i was in disagreement?
you’re pretty much calling every single american ancestor that died for 4th of July America’s independence a mentally ill
i most certainly did nothing of the sort
my point is that we know so very little factual information about this kid that nobody can do more than to speculate or guess as to his actual motivations, so we shouldn’t until we learn sufficient facts to draw a reasonable, logical conclusion.
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.
PFFFFF YOOO 💀😭
You ok?
I’m good, that was just one hell of a burn.
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.
The donation of a 69 year old man with the same name…
Considering that address match, and the fact that the location on the in-question FEC filing does not exist in Pittsburgh, evidence favors the conclusion that the shooter made the donation — not someone else with the same name.
So he spent $20 on trump signs. Are we in agreement he was a fucking Nazi dickwad as well?
To be fair, I think he was living with his parents so there’s no way to know who wanted them. Maybe they all did, maybe not.
Either way, from what I’ve heard it doesn’t seem like he was that political. It appears like he was just a kid who liked guns but was such a bad shot the shooting club at his school wouldn’t let him in. He then decided to immortalize himself as a presidential assassin, but instead immortalized himself as the terrible shot everyone thought he was.
You can’t say this and not provide a source
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, I’ve seen the donation and registration myself and all details matched. So unless those details were altered by someone managing either of those two registries, it doesn’t seem like those were made by 2 different people.
Edit: that being said the donation is inconsequential at best, it could have been something like “donate and get a funny hat” or anything like this.
If you seen it “for yourself”, please provide the source.
I’ll let you know I actively despise you specifically for making my lazy ass repeat due diligence in verifying information for you. This is something you could have researched yourself using advanced modern technologies such as Google. Those materials are openly available, and if you distrust my opinion, then you should never trust any sources I provide instead of researching on your own. You’ll notice that all websites I’ll provide as sources end with “.gov”, which not only means those are somewhat legitimate, but also discoverable by most lazy of fucks. Oh well.
You can check the individual contributions here: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Thomas+Crooks&contributor_zip=15102
You can check the voter registration status here: https://www.pavoterservices.pa.gov/pages/voterregistrationstatus.aspx
And if you use ActBlue donor data, ZIP code, and all other details we know about the shooter like their birth date and such, you will get this:
If you search on Google Maps for “USA 15102,” you will get sent to Bethel Park, PA 15102, which we know the shooter lived in. Here’s the “source” for that:
You might notice that on the donor registration there is a location of “PITTSBURGH, PA 15102” instead of Bethel Park, but as far as I understand the USA ZIP code system, that place doesn’t exist. 15102 points specifically to Bethel Park. You can try putting “PITTSBURGH, PA 15102” into Google Maps and you’ll be sent to Bethel Park. We can then double check if some parts of Pittsburgh are recognized as belonging under 15102 on the USPS ZIP Code Lookup Tool, instead of it being solely used for Bethel Park:
As you can see, it doesn’t seem to be the case. So, can anyone else living in Bethel Park with this same name be the person who made the donation? Sure, but the narrative that addresses differ or that the person from this address made multiple donations over the years is fake, as you can clearly see on the donor’s receipts, there being only one donation under that ZIP code and name. By the way, you might need to use a VPN to access the www.pavoterservices.pa.gov thing. I used Opera for that as it gave me a free one.
Ok. But I don’t use Google in this way. My search engine heads towards me and I live somewhere else. I’m checking the validity of your claim. I don’t see conclusive proof. The Thomas Crooks that made a donation does not have a middle name in his donation. From what I have seen that is the crux if the discussion.
I don’t know if middle name is required, and I sort of doubt it seeing as they got city wrong as well. That was most likely typed by hand, someone put in city before asking for ZIP code, I’d wager. Still, that Thomas Crooks would need to live in same neighbourhood, and arguments about it being a democrat that donated repeatedly also couldn’t be true unless they moved into this neighbourhood, made this donation, and moved out. At this point what’s inconclusive is any argument I’ve heard against this in my opinion, as most of them are invalidated by either wrong adresses or counts of donations. If you can point me to anyone else who would meet all of the criteria then I’ll concede that the evidence about this donation being made by the shooter is not conclusive, before that we can conjure magical creatures and claim it could have been them.
It was made on January 21st, 2021… the day after Trump was inaugurated. Like you said, there’s no way to tie a motive or belief system to the small record, but it has definitely been food for thought, for journalists at least.
Not to be that guy but you meant “the day after Biden was inaugurated”
Can you provide a source?
Snopes already debunked.
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
It says Pittsburgh, but 15102 is the zip code for Bethel Park
If it’s 30 minutes from the city people will call it Pittsburgh.
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.
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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
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.
Eyup
Wasn’t this proven false?
What, you expect journalists to investigate claims?
Or be a human being?
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you know the more you say this the less Tenacious D we get?
Good.
Idk what made you so upset, but I am very glad it happened.
Stay mad.
Thanks I like this phrasing
I’m confused.
With the timing, I think it’s stuff like the epstein news that broke something for him
The what? Epstein was years ago… has there been something new in the last few weeks?
Released court documents.
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.
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
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
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
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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
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
hah! you’re so butthurt at being wrong at understanding English 😂
