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   Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:22 JST Peter

   as a formerly-conservative guy who now has some progressive opinions, i have a few thoughts on the last couple years of assassinations and assassination attempts.

   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:14 JST Peter

     in reply to

     so for the right, it's been a lot of fun over the years harassing reporters at the New York Times and academics at Columbia University. these are non-violent, democratic institutions. they are safe, liberal targets. and the spicier parts of the left have been subject to state surveillance and repression for over 100yrs. but the right is now expanding the outgroup to include conservative men. they are playing with fire.

     RamenCatholic 🐢 🌈 repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:15 JST Peter

     in reply to

     and some of these conservatives, who are now in the out-group, **do not have the tools** to respond non-violently or democratically to big, existential problems. they were not raised that way, and it's not what their community values.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) and Steve's Place repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:16 JST Peter

     in reply to

     the Trumpists are, i think, genuinely freaked out by this political violence, so they are attacking "the left". the thing is, that won't work, because none of this is coming from "the left." by moving the baseline of American politics further and further to the right and unleashing the cruelty of state violence and unfettered capitalism on more and more Americans, they are **expanding** the outgroup of persecuted non-Trumpists to include many individuals who are, in fact, conservatives.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:18 JST Peter

     in reply to

     so these guys grew up around this, surrounded by guns at home and guns in the media, indoctrinated with the idea that the fastest, most masculine way to solve a problem is by shooting it. then life takes some unexpected twists (severe back pain, exposed to hate for the first time, etc.) and they find themselves with a huge problem on the wrong side of the political divide, and with no community of support or tools for what to do about it. so they shoot it.

     Steve's Place repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:19 JST Peter

     in reply to

     the guy who showed up with a gun at Comet Ping Pong was trying to rescue kids. the people who bomb abortion clinics think they are stopping murder. Ashli Babbit's last tweeted words before she stormed the Capitol on Jan6 were "dark to light!" if you leave aside the grifters who are trying to make money on all this, the conservatives who have been caught up in QAnon or whatever genuinely want to save kids. but they want to do that by killing pedophiles.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:20 JST Peter

     in reply to

     the thing is, when you grow up conservative, in conservative spaces and with conservative friends and family, you don't have these tools and instincts. you have violence. if you go on down the list of all the crazy, weird conservative violence that's happened over the last 10 years, a lot of these guys were (stick with me here) trying to help.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Peter (peter@thepit.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Sep-2025 22:07:21 JST Peter

     in reply to

     the Trump assassin on the golf course, Luigi Mangione, and now Tyler Robinson all have a similar profile: conservative guys who felt like "something" was wrong and want to do "something" about it. if they'd grown up in liberal or left households, that would mean writing an article, organizing a protest, donating to a food bank, volunteering for a campaign, reading a book, joining a group.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Cecilia | MeraOrd (meraord@mastodonsweden.se)'s status on Thursday, 18-Sep-2025 03:00:18 JST Cecilia | MeraOrd

     in reply to

     @peter It's almost as if us feminists were (and are) right when we advocate for letting boys grow up knowing their emotions, how to regulate them, to learn kindness and to seek help and support eachother, do what is right *for them* instead of some stupid violent macho role that so many of them think they have to play.

     Huh.