Originally published at: Shocked Classmates Remember ‘Awfully Quiet’ Trump Shooter Tom Crooks - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Before he allegedly fired the shots heard around the country, Thomas Matthew Crooks barely made a sound. Two former classmates of the 20-year-old Crooks told TPM they were stunned when he was identified as the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening. According to Crooks’…
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The quick take could be ‘typical’ incel I suppose but being noticed is not a small thing to some. Still, the kind of social isolation or fantasy that would lead to assassinating a famous person as a cure for that is one helluva leap.
It may sound overly facile but it would have helped everyone including himself if access to an assault rifle, or any gun for that matter, was a lot more difficult.
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i read that the $15 donation was from someone else with the same name. Maybe that needs to be verified before widely reporting it?
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I get the impression that this wasn’t politically motivated as much as this was an attack of oppurtunity for a kid that wanted to be remembered. Basically same motivation as most school shootings.
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“Do you think he shot Buckwheat?”
“Oh yes, it’s all he ever talked about.”
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I am also now reading that the photos showing that the $15 donation being from someone else are fakes.
The $15 donation was made by the shooter, not a 69 year old with the same name in Pittsburgh. Also, this is probs irrelevant and it's completely stupid to lie about it, and I'm not going to argue with anyone about it anymore. The guy donated to Act Blue. Then nine months later he…
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) July 14, 2024
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Good article. Thank you @hunter.
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Sad…
I like the picture with his smile, I can easily envision this young man having been bullied all his life. He’s got the look.
I say this because I was bullied for three years after my third grade. That’s when my father passed. It was an awkward time on many levels.
Things changed in seventh grade after I picked up a tree limb, chased down one of the bullies and stopped short of whacking his head. Did I say that things changed?
I can empathize with this guys pain…was no one there for him?
No North Star?
Listen…young men are in a early crisis similar to that in the Arab world. They look over the horizon and see nothing.
no job…let alone a career
arranged marriage and no means of supporting a family
your leaders drive in air-conditioned limos
You have no effing idea what air-conditioning is
it sucks to be the piglet that gets pushed aside
Over time resentment can become almost genetic.
Think Palestinians
Namaste…
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He looks exactly like I thought he would look. The real tragedy is, the rage and violence fomented by trump and the GOP, combined with a father who buys guns, and a Wild West social media environment created this pathetic young man. As a nation, we are doing terribly at inspiring the young to strive for better things - for both themselves and for their fellow human beings (and planet).
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The only way to stop a nerd with a gun is…
On second thought, nerds with guns are so unusual I’m stumped.
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There is lot’s of new brain and psychological research that shows social isolation can increase radicalization. The peers that TPM are talking to may not have witnessed bullying, or may have been experiencing their own. Right now the stories that are coming out don’t seem to tell a story I can understand, for either side particularly. That’s not going to stop the conspiracy theorists, and frankly nothing can so don’t even bother trying. It was going to have a Warren commission seal of approval the second the words Trump, and assassination came together.
If there is a bright side to this, it’s that the GOP true to form went out of it’s way to make sure Democrats didn’t feel an obligation to offer much beyond relief that Trump is OK and a sincere reminder that political violence is antithetical to American Democracy. Despite the fact that we’re often treated to it.
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I guess shooting the former president is one way for a quiet, shy 20 yr old to “be somebody,” This will show the guys who wouldn’t let him join the rifle club. The big question is, “How do quiet, socially inept males feel important in other countries that outlaw AR-15s.?”
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Yup. Hardly surprising, though. We’ve known for a long time that repetition of themes and information helps solidify them in the mind. Learning multiplication tables by rote, for example, and ‘go write ‘I will not shoot spitballs in class’ 100 times on the blackboard’. Studies in the '90s and aughts showed that to be the case even when we know the information isn’t true: the more you hear it, the more the brain accepts it, and you have to have a counter-pressure to keep from starting to believe it.
So when you’re isolated, in an echo chamber of people who are ‘misunderstood’ and ‘unappreciated’, too… it can get real ugly, real fast, and it just self-reinforces, over and over again.
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AHhhhh hell…
let’s not go there.
GOTV
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Sad indeed, and it has unleashed a firestorm.
If the Democratic nominee prevails in November, we will continue with the accelerated decline in democracy we have been experiencing thanks to SCOTUS and the various assaults Republicans can bring to bear, moderated to the degree they hold state and federal offices.
So GOTV, and that’s the minimal trajectory.
However, if Trump prevails in November (and it’s not necessary but a great deal worse if either or both houses are Republican), it is easy to come up with entirely plausible scenarios of what happens once we go over the precipice. (There is no way we are not going over the precipice if Trump wins.)
For example: no support for Ukraine; effective if not in fact pulling out of NATO; Putin takes much of Ukraine; Baltic states and western Europe are threatened and fight back; hot war spreads; N. Korea and/or China and/or India supports Russia. Trump tries to prosecute Biden. Trump, who is above the law, tries to have perceived enemies assassinated. Project 2025. Etc. etc.
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Your comment seems like a decent place to add this, which I think/hope may be of interest.
The recent issue of Mother Jones magazine included an article I found to be particularly interesting about a mass-shooter from the perspective of his mother. She’s become active in the threat assessment community.
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Need to repeat all week.
There is not a shred a evidence yet that Thomas Matthew Crooks paid the slightest attention to anything Biden ever said as Crooks developed his motivation to shoot at fellow Second Amendment fan Donald Trump.
Crooks also had bombs in his car to deploy afterward against other targets, somehow thinking he could shoot at Trump out in the open and not die quickly thereafter.
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The '90s?
Really?
Maybe some whizbanggogetter did their Masters dissertaion but in J Caesar’s time there was Suetonius and then there was Athenian Democracy.
The technique of political propaganda is as old as dirt.
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Yeah, but the 90s is when they started doing clinical studies to prove the effect. Because until you have peer-reviewed literature, science has to say ‘well, we don’t really know…’
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Bothsides!
After Trump Shooting, America Reverts to Blaming the Other Side
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/14/trump-shooting-partisanship-column-00168003
But, you know:
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