543
Thomas Matthew Crooks: The registered Republican and gun lover who shot Trump
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
543 points (95.8% liked)
politics
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Some articles (like this one from USA Today have mentioned that in '21 he made a small donation to the Progressive Turnout Project, and it's interesting that that's missing from this article. Did it turn out to not be true or did they purposefully omit that?
I'm from Yurop so I don't even pretend to understand the election system in the US let alone PA, but I've seen some comments that led me to understand that he could well be a Democrat even though he was a "registered Republican" because there might not even be good D candidates for him to vote for in PA, and many D voters tactically vote for the least bad R candidate.
Not sure him being a "gun lover" really necessarily paints him as a Republican either; Americans regardless of party affiliation can be pretty… uh, enthusiastic about guns, although yeah it does seem to be more common on the right but I'm not sure it's enough to draw any conclusions from it.
And just so there's no misunderstandings, I really don't have a dog in this hunt so I'm not looking to blame Democrats for the shooting, I'm just trying to digest the news I've been reading.
NY Times article interviewed a classmate who indicated he had right leaning views.
The Republican party registration has other corroborating information listed such as middle initial address and date of birth.
The donation only has the same first and last name.
So they're including the Republican party registration, as it's more confirmed... And they're not saying he voted Republican, just that he was registered that way.
As for having an interest in guns, he owned an AR-15, so must have had some interest there.
He was wearing a Demolition Ranch Tshirt. It's a popular YouTube gun channel.
He was wearing a T-shirt from the merch store of the "Demolition Ranch" YouTube channel (huge gun channel) when he did this so yeah definitely
The donation is not confirmed to be him. The listed donation just came with a first and last name. No age or birth date, with no middle initial or name. There are a lot of people with the same first and last name and there's no reason to believe it was this particular Thomas Crooks that made the donation.
The address on the Act Blue donation is also listed as Pittsburgh, not Bethel Park.
Turns out that was a different person with the same name.
I definitely think it's possible he could be either. The bit about guns is mainly because guns is one of their things. Some Republicans love guns more than anything.
Either way, I'm mostly impressed at how quickly those facts became the most important bits of information. I guess it makes sense though. I'm just glad he's white and not brown. lol
It depends on the state (and their election laws) but some people register for the opposite primary to try and influence it.
It was a donation to a get out the vote project. On inauguration day. About as useful as tits on a tractor.
I don't know if he made the donation to make it seem like he was a Democrat or for no good reason, but he didn't donate $15 on January 20th to help Democratic turnout.
They probably left it out because getting into it would only muddy the waters or even lend false credence to the cult's conspiracy theories about him being "deep state antifa" or whatever.
Nothing here is controversial in the slightest, why the down votes?
And yes, there are plenty of liberal gun nuts, like me.