>“illiberal-left” (never heard that before so I think I know what you mean…?)
"Left wing" but rejects classical liberal values like free speech (eg. favoring speech restrictions) or meritocracy (eg. favoring affirmative action or quotas).
>with this but my experience has been people are basically trying to boil this down to “your team did it, not my team.”
All of which makes the attempt by the left to insist that he wasn't left wing all the more the stranger. 45 and 43 percent of americans identify as "republican/lean republican" and "democrat/lean democrat" respectively. From those statistics you'd expect 88% of shooters to belong to one side or the other. Of course, just because a shooter belongs to one side, doesn't automatically delegitimize that side's political position, but the correct response to that would be something like "yes, he was left leaning, but his beliefs are not reflective of the left/democrats as a whole", not trying to insist "Any attempt to slot him neatly as “left” or “right” is pointless".
> All of which makes the attempt by the left to insist that he wasn't left wing all the more the stranger.
I don’t understand why this is so one sided in your opinion…? Both major parties and their base are saying “he wasn’t one of ours.” I feel like I’m missing something here.
>Both major parties and their base are saying “he wasn’t one of ours.” I feel like I’m missing something here.
Because even though there's no slam dunk evidence that he's left/right wing (eg. some manifesto saying "yep, I'm left wing!", it's far more likely that he was left wing rather than right wing, and therefore the left's attempt to distance themselves from the shooter is weaker and worth calling out more. If the circumstances were reversed (eg. this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Paul_Pelosi#Social_m...), and both the left and the right tried to distance themselves from the attacker, I'd call out the right more, even if there's vague tidbits implying he was left.
Because... why?
>“illiberal-left” (never heard that before so I think I know what you mean…?)
"Left wing" but rejects classical liberal values like free speech (eg. favoring speech restrictions) or meritocracy (eg. favoring affirmative action or quotas).
>with this but my experience has been people are basically trying to boil this down to “your team did it, not my team.”
All of which makes the attempt by the left to insist that he wasn't left wing all the more the stranger. 45 and 43 percent of americans identify as "republican/lean republican" and "democrat/lean democrat" respectively. From those statistics you'd expect 88% of shooters to belong to one side or the other. Of course, just because a shooter belongs to one side, doesn't automatically delegitimize that side's political position, but the correct response to that would be something like "yes, he was left leaning, but his beliefs are not reflective of the left/democrats as a whole", not trying to insist "Any attempt to slot him neatly as “left” or “right” is pointless".
https://news.gallup.com/poll/548459/independent-party-tied-h...