Texas law enforcement is investigating a hate-filled manifesto that appeared online shortly before a gunman fired at a supermarket parking lot in El Paso on Saturday.
I’m not a regular consumer of these “manifestos”. I sought this one out for some reason, and I was somewhat surprised. I usually think “angry screed” when I heat “mass shooting manifesto”. It was disturbingly coherent.
Is this common?
From Poetry Magazine this AM, with their daily poem.
A Note from the Editor
On this day 75 years ago, the German Gestapo found 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family, who had been hiding in seclusion for 25 months.
Heard on NPR, if it is the killer’s manifesto, that he absolved Trump of blame, since his anti-immigrant thoughts pre-dated Trump.
Huh? This pea-brain thinks that is a pass for Trump? All Trump supporters pre-dated Trump. Trump just let them out of the box, and encouraged them to “fly, my pretties!”
I think it is less than common, but not exclusionary. People can be psycho and still put words together. And I’m not granting this shooter any insanity leeway.
So why would he bother to mention that? Did he also absolve Moscow Mitch? How about Alex Jones?
Hispanic invasion of Texas? Guy needs to brush up on his history.
I have not read any of these “manifestos”, but my impression is that they are heavily cribbed from one or two documents already in circulation. These guys spend a great deal of time reading the same source material in search of a rationalization for beliefs that can only exist in the heat of intense personal anger. They also believe in martyrdom. Don’t let the coherence fool you into believing they’re rational thinkers.
There seems to be a strange ailment for conservative voices on the talking heads shows this morning. There is one name they seem unable to speak, at least in the proper and obvious context. That name is Donald J. Trump, who regularly incites his rabid followers to the kind of anger and fear that serve as the trigger for these terrible acts. It may not, technically, be Trump’s fault, but he is certainly part of the problem, and the most easily identified part.
Edit: They keep saying that they won’t blame the president for something that he didn’t personally do, but Trump, of course, was happy to blame Cummings for the woes of Baltimore.
Edi2t: Oh, and now Mulvaney, again, on Meet the Press, is concerned about the level of rhetoric he is hearing from opponents. What he keeps missing in saying that he doesn’t blame Bernie Sanders for violence carried out by a supporter is that Trump is actually stoking the violence from his supporters. We have seen a lot of Democratic candidates for president (admittedly from Texas), but the president can ony send out his spokesman.
Edit3: Mulvaney is a deeply slimy character.
Now they believe he may have published a manifesto raving against a so-called “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Gee, where did this murderer get that idea? From another murderer.
At this very moment, large, well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Some people call it an “invasion.” It’s like an invasion. They have violently overrun the Mexican border.
…
Q Mr. President, how is this plan going to be legal, considering the current law?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, this is totally legal. No. This is legal. We are stopping people at the border. This is an invasion, and nobody is even questioning that.
It’s normalization. They think it’s rude to consider that Trump is a white nationalist who could inspire such carnage, even when the evidence is placed in front of them. The shooter was gaslighting, as Josh said in his recent post. NPR won’t go there because they are consumed with “balance” at the expense of objectivity. Pfft!
Is that National Propaganda Radio you refer to?
Donnie is too busy cheating on the back 9. Priorities.
(Joy Reid just had Beto, Booker, Buttigieg, and Castro on back to back.)
No, National Pusillanimous Radio.
Impeach the MF’er now. We can’t take another 15 months of this. Does anyone really think Trump continuing to stir the hatred and division is going to diminish?
Since 2016, i’ve thought of them as “Now Placating Republicans” radio. Syndicated shows are ok but the national news coverage is basically fox-lite.
While I agree we should impeach the mother-fucker, this thing is going to go on way beyond his tenure. These are folks who will sit around the table at the coffee shop (or in front of the computer screen in the dank basements of their parents homes) and hatch vast and over-complicated theories about the kabal of Soros, Clinton and AOC that engineered a coup to over-throw the righteous dominion of their savior. We will see this kind of domestic terrorism, largely centered and acted out in red states for decades to come.
My fear is Trump being impeached or voted out of office will bring more destruction.
Not only the pardons he will hand out but more of the crazy’s that keep appearing.
Haven’t read the manifesto but no one should be surprised if it is coherent. This is not random mental illness. This is the armed terrorist wing of an international ideological movement. Is Bannon mentally ill? Is Mercer who funds Bannon? Is Steve King? Are Sessions or Cornyn? Is Tucker Carlson? If the guys with AR 15s are the IRA, a major wing of the Republican Party is Sinn Fein. They won’t be stopped till we call things by their name and force the decent Republicans who remain to take stock of what their party has become.