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I think all the discussion about an identity-based lens downthread is extremely misguided. This is more neutral life crisis, I would argue. So the guy, clearly fairly smart, graduates CalTech in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Seems like he works for a bit over a year, then I assume is laid off or maybe he absolutely hated it, in the two months after he tries to work on an indie game, publishes one crappy Flash-era looking game that got probably double-digit sales at most (2 reviews on Steam in 6 years before the shooting led to a handful more sales), goes quiet and probably lives on savings for a bit, at some point I think moves home, eventually after a year or two picks up tutoring as a part-time gig for a few years. Highly likely here, reading between the lines, he gets some FOMO and feels in a dead end career-wise, goes back to school for a CS master's degree, then doesn't get a job in the big slump right as he graduates. He's Christian, probably somewhat typical left-leaning politics, by all accounts fairly mild-mannered, and like many Californians including Christians really dislikes Trump and his movement on a moral basis. Weirdly, he seems to like Kash Patel as the one exception (didn't include on list of targets). Moral enough to not target bystanders, but morally misguided enough to still commit murder despite Christianity being pretty clear about how that's bad.
This describes a fair amount of people, including actually myself to a loose extent biographically/politically speaking (if you squint a bit, but not too too hard). More specifically to him, smart enough to realize that political assassinations do have some kind of national political impact, not smart enough to realize these impacts are almost impossible to predict and often are counterproductive, smart enough to get guns and go cross-country without getting caught, but not smart enough to actually plan almost anything meaningful (though to be fair this at least partially checks out, since as we know being too detailed in your planning raises the chances of getting caught before you go, so it's not 100% stupid). If you wanna kill administration officials, usually you would have to limit yourself to 1 official at a smaller event to have a decent chance, so I assume this is an overambitious plan here. Clearly he didn't expect to live. I assume poor tactical awareness.
To circle back briefly and reiterate, it's not that political assassinations "don't work" it's that they don't consistently work in the ways shooters want them to. Often a stupid idea.
This doesn't tell us much other than the memetic influence of copycat shootings is starting to spread to more 'normie' people who aren't extremely mentally ill ('only' depression or similar here doesn't count). If history is any guide we'll see a few more assassination attempts of various types for the next 5-8 ish years and then it will slowly fade again, again purely based on the epidemiological-like traits the spread of acts like these are well documented to have (think for example certain modes of domestic terrorism over the years). I think this also slightly re-contextualizes a few of the incidents of violence like the Kirk shooter or Luigi Mangione as potentially less identity-based than initially suspected, when viewed in context, although the sequential nature of the memetic spread of this kind of political violence makes it hard to be super sure about that. I think it's a mistake to view these through primarily identity-based lenses, because memetic spread of this kind of thing naturally travels in subgroups but doesn't inherently correspond to groups themselves. Frankly I think nearly any loose political grouping is susceptible to this kind of thing, so the recurring "the lefties do this more" or "the righties do this more" that both left and right are constantly obsessed with in the last decade in particular is just a stupid argument.
If there IS a culture war angle to this? It's more about how fulfilling men in modern society seem to find life. That is, not very fulfilling, especially when you encounter job, social, or severe mental difficulties in the 15-35 age range or so. If this guy had more to live for, this kind of thing doesn't happen. At least that's my take.
Yeah. This and the Trans thing I feel a certain 'there but for the grace of god go I' where I might not be on the same trajectory, but I see this guy and the average MtF and see sufficient overlap in personal characteristics to be able to put myself directly in their shoes and wish there were less landmines for the intelligent, moderately-autistic man of today. Whilst this guy is obviously the far outlier in terms of having enough agency and drive to actually attempt a political assassination, it's not hard to see how one could get stuck in a state of such absolute torpor and ennui in modern life.
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