• themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I don’t particularly care about the politics of a madman, but this is not insight. He was 20 and lived in rural PA. Everybody registers as Republican so they can vote in primaries in local elections, because Democrats never win in those areas. Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so the same thint happens in Philadelphia with the Democrats.

    • atro_city@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      But somehow if he had been registered a democrat then suddenly republicans would’ve cared. I can already hear it “this was a false flag operation”.

    • AnomalousBit@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      You may not care, but an unfortunate number of people think everyone is in box A or box B and only want to see this through the lens of identity politics.

      If Trump’s history serves any precedent, it also kind of shits on his ceaseless narrative of blaming liberals / migrants / LGBT people for all the world’s problems if it was a republican who perpetrated the attack. Leopards would never eat his face, right?

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        You’re completely right, and I won’t be at all surprised if the violent nutjob is as much a bigot and xenophobe who thought Trump wasn’t Nazi enough to be trusted.

        I’m just pointing out that his party registration isn’t necessarily an indication of his personal beliefs. Maybe he’s a psychotic centrist who wants a more moderate Republican candidate, or he’s a delusional progressive who thought the world would be better without Trump in it. Maybe he was a rape victim seeking vengeance, or a failed applicant from The Apprentice.

        We don’t know why he tried to kill former President Trump. There are a lot of possibilities, and his party affiliation may or may not be relevant.

    • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This isn’t even necessarily true. I lived in PA for a while and during primaries they can “temporarily” enroll independant voters into a party. They then unenroll you once voting is over, it’s to prevent you from being able to vote in both primaries. You do not “have” to be registered with a party year round to vote in a primary in PA. They’ll switch you over day of and switch you back after.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Independent voters can register for one party and then denounce their party after, but there’s no automated process I’m aware of. I’ve lived in PA my whole life, and voted since the 90s.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      The shirt says otherwise.

      Whether you care or not is not relevant. The fact is that everything is political now.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Because the county includes Pittsburgh. Bethel Park is a bumfuck suburb in the land of churches and meth affectionately known as Pennsyltucky.

          • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Fair enough. What I should have said was “Frequently, voters register in the dominant party to vote in the primary for the party that is presumed to win.” Everybody is an exaggeration.

            • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Thank you. I don’t like the hand waving that they are using to somehow blame this on their ‘enemies’ and that kind of exaggeration feeds into it.