This wasnt even that long ago

Somone wise once said, fool me once shame on you foot me twice... Can't get fooled again!

Republicans have been pushing hate and fear for DECADES. They have laughed at tragedies and drawn crosshairs on their political opponents.

So yea, we don't need to be better men.

I don't condone violence, but I also have zero sympathy for someone who's done nothing except stoke fear and violence at every turn.

I don't feel bad stooping to their level on this. Moral victory is pretty meaningless in the end, especially in a situation like this. It's really just cathartic.

Better men are the ones that string the fascist up from gas stations.

You're not entitled to the people you've hurt being the bigger person for you.

What you're entitled to is to be grateful if all they do is pay you back evenly or at lesser cost to you than you put them through.

You can be a better man if you want, i'm not wasting social niceties on someone who took a fat dump on the social contract and told me to eat up. And that is my choice to make.

When it's no longer working sometimes you have to abandon being the better man and punch a bully in the mouth.

People have been saying that more and more recently.

Nice job inserting words that weren't said but outing yourself instead

And further alienate any actual people that might support them. They have to condemn political violence because it was an attack on their class, and their class solidarity overrides any political rivalry. But even my very liberal friend said "dang, it's too bad they missed." Idk what my Christian grandma feels about the shooting but when Trump got covid she did say he deserved it.

Most if not all. Would not put is past Bernie to show up to the next congressional hearing with an MP5K under his jacket and say “just in case.”

Basically I’m saying we need more Bernies

Its an ear-splitting dog whistle from the secessionists and white nationalists who see Jared Kushner as a shadowy (((puppet master))) working Trump's strings. This call came from inside the GOP's own house.

Are we going to make calling out Trumpism anti-semetic now?

To Milwaukee?

if it wasn't BLM it would just be one of the other dozens of stupid bullshits they perpetually cry about

Yeah, according to his wikipedia page, he was:

• registered republican
• advocated for conservative views in high school debates
• donated to a progressive voter turnout project the same day Biden was sworn in

To me that means he had conservative views that don't align with Trump's views. My guess is that he felt Trump steered the party in the wrong direction, which is totally understandable. Prior to Trump, the Republican Party was relatively centrist (look at Romney and McCain, the two prior GOP candidates), and after Trump, the rhetoric among conservatives really ramped up.

So yeah, I think radical centrist totally fits the bill.

Honestly, I used to consider myself Republican as a teenager, and that was true until just after the 2012 election. I really liked Rand Paul, and seeing him get totally rejected was disappointing, to say the least. I voted Libertarian in 2016, and for Biden in 2020, all because I absolutely despise Trump. I am no longer under any illusion that I'm conservative (I'm very socially liberal), but I can see how someone who considers themselves conservative could not mesh at all with Trump's message, to the point where they see him as a threat to their preferred party.

libertarian in high school for a short time before I realized what that group was really about (basically freedom to hate, not freedom to love, unless it’s loving children)

?? That's... exactly the opposite of libertarianism. Look at the Libertarian Party nominee for 2024, he's a gay man who is extremely supportive of the trans community and came from the left. That's just about the opposite of the caricature you've painted.

I wonder if by "libertarian" you mean the "libertarian" wing of the Republican Party? Because those aren't libertarians at all, they're just conservatives who aren't as openly against civil rights. They're the sorts that somehow justify supporting Trump, which makes absolutely no sense to someone with libertarian values (again, see how Trump was booed at the Libertarian National Convention).

Libertarians believe in the non-aggression principle (i.e. they just want to leave you alone), and someone who attempts to assassinate a presidential candidate certainly doesn't meet that bar. They believe in same sex marriage (and probably non-monogomous marriage), access to recreational drugs, no foreign military involvement, increased legal immigration, fiscal responsibility, etc.

We need something more powerful than a bullet to kill the movement.

Exactly. We need to disseminate truth. Show people how Trump's policies have failed and will fail. Expose his lies, and demonstrate how alternatives are better. Unfortunately, Biden isn't the right candidate to spread that message. I am looking at Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party candidate) to spread that message, but unfortunately the LP is having some internal issues so he may be limited in his reach.

What we need is a champion for liberty that's willing to call out BS on both sides of the aisle, not in a "both sides" sense, but by calling out unique issues with both major parties. That push needs to be strong enough to make concrete steps toward solving the roots of the problem, such as:

• alternative voting systems - personal preference for STAR or Approval, but Ranked Choice works
• end gerrymandering - personal preference for proportional representation within the states, but independent commissions work
• reform political debates - any candidate who is on enough ballots to mathematically win should be invited to at least the first debate
• reform campaign funding - massive fines for inaccurate ads, and perhaps ban ads altogether except for ads for debates

Those have at least some chance at fixing things.

He didn't donate to a progressive fund. That was a 69 year old man, with the same name, in Pittsburgh, not Bethel Park.

Or he's a former Bernie supporter who got radicalized after Bernie lost. Your political compass can change very quickly when you're that young.