This is one of the biggest problems with our current state of polarization: we’re quick to box people into a binary; either “red” or “blue,” “left” or “right.”
Real people rarely fit neatly into those categories. When you take the time to actually map out someone’s beliefs, experiences, and values, what you find almost never looks like a solid block of one color. Instead, it’s more like a mosaic: someone might lean conservative on economic issues, progressive on social ones, independent when it comes to foreign policy, and undecided on others.
Reducing all of that complexity down to a single partisan label is not only misleading, it also fuels division. It makes it harder to have real conversations, because instead of engaging with the full person (their reasoning, contradictions, and growth), we engage with a caricature. Recognizing that most people carry a mix of beliefs forces us to slow down, listen, and resist the urge to collapse identities into overly simple categories.
The challenge is that this feels counterintuitive, especially for people who haven’t examined why they hold the views they do. It’s easier, and often more comforting, to inherit an identity or adopt a team than it is to wrestle with contradictions and gray areas. But when we refuse that deeper work, we not only misunderstand others, we also misunderstand ourselves.
In other words, the messiness is the point. People are complicated, and when we acknowledge that, we create more space for dialogue, empathy, and genuine understanding; the very things that binary polarization squeezes out.
Edit:
If you’re interested in seeing how this plays out in practice, the New York Times put together a quiz a few years back that illustrates the point really well:
Very well said, this is how i think as well. Here in switzerland it is exactly the same even though we have 5 major parties to choose from.
This is also why direct democracy in switzerland is so amazing. You choose people that represent the parliment in parties while you still can vote different in referendums than your chosen party does.
Probably a libertarian. Non party affiliated has been growing as people arent into fascist Republicans vs fiscal conservative policy and they dont want to be a Democrat in those states.
I know we have this, you are one party of the other thing but i think the “others” is gonna get bigger as a group and already has.
He was apparently dating a transgender person. That doesn’t necessarily make him left wing, but it means that in regards to transgender people, he probably didn’t fully agree with the right wing
From what I’ve pieced together, it’s a guy from a MAGA family that was recently radicalized, possibly in college towards left-wingism (possibly via exposure and humanization of trans room mate?). There’s not that much evidence to suggest he was a far-righter himself (the groyper claims are literally just “yeah the engravings are a dogwhistle trust me bro” but many libs here are buying it), and now it’s just turning into a war of push from both sides being like “no it’s not OUR guy it’s YOUR guy!”.
In other words, it’s impossible to tell for certain due to how deliberately muddied the waters are by everyone.
There’s equal evidence for the groyper claim as there is for the trans roommate claim, which is to say nothing but hearsay being pushed out by the Governor of Utah.
He went to UVU one semester and then left and went to trade school as an electrical apprentice. I highly doubt he got radicalized at college in Utah. He was already radicalized by his parents and family in the MAGA / Mormon spheres. It takes longer than a semester to deconstruct cult level beliefs like that. There is very little to any evidence that his roommate is trans. It is all hearsay picked up from places like 4-chan then spread to right-wing rags then spread to right wing politicans. A big loooong game of telephone. It isn’t even clear he lived there at the time of the shooting. The Daily Mail said he lives with his family in a $600,000 six-bedroom home.
The reason the trans - fan fic is getting spread by right-wingers is that the federal authorities are using it to get jurisdiction from the state since that could make it classify as a hate crime. Even if the roommate is trans that doesn’t mean they aren’t a right-wing trans person. Trans people can have shitty views just like any other group of people.
It doesn’t help that the FBI and news outlets are releasing different info to different news audiences to muddy the waters. Just the meta-data of this being the 3rd trans related storyline being pushed does not inspire confidence in it’s veracity. The first TRN one was debunked and retracted, but then they claim the engravings point to trans- ideology when that isn’t really apparent. Then they come up with another one. Sorry, not buying right-wingers making shit up to blame it on trans people.
The Trump regime doesn’t want a local jury of Mormon peers, they want to execute him federally and have control of the trial so that inconvenient information doesn’t come out.
MAGA was screaming that it was a radical leftist without ANY evidence… They are just looking for an excuse to justify using force against political opponents
Me too. I am left wing and shoot guns weekly. I live in switzerland and it is not a issue at all because there are strict regulations. You cannot aquire an automatic rifle without special permissions.
I think “we’re” going to end up with a lot of egg on our faces the more they investigate. I believe his parents have already told the authorities that “he’s been getting more into left wing ideology in the recent years” so I’m pretty sure its just a matter of time before it’s “proven.”
The only thing people have to go off of now is some tenuous connection to Nick Fuentes that doesn’t seem too solid.
Why the hell would I want to “sweet up” after them? I even used the term “we’re” to distinguish the fact that I’m not a right winger. I’m simply trying to stick to the only facts we have, I’m not letting what I want to be real get in the way of what reality seems to be.
I’m one of the last people who wants this to be a left wing guy, but I also won’t plug my ears and choose to believe something that might not be true based on some loose connections.
Where did you see he was turning left? Given his background with groupers, he’s got Internet brain rot and is trying to play lefty while doing what he did for the reasons stated are hardcore radical right.
Pause. Where did you see he had a background with groypers? Not speculation, but hard evidence. Not memes, but actual proof.
This is the problem today, speculation is treated as fact. Everyone pretends they have things figured out when they don’t know shit and are basing their beliefs off of unvetted internet posts.
In an article I read they stated that his parents were supposedly saying he started turning to the left in recent years. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but it would at least partially explain his not voting for Republicans and registration as independent.
What background has been proven that he has a history with groypers? The only thing I’ve seen are the bullet engravings, but unfortunately he managed to pick every single meme that could go either way… They all have a history of starting one way and being used in another, even the helldiver’s reference could be a fascist misunderstanding the point of helldiver’s, or a left winger understanding and using it as anti-fascist.
I wish I had it saved since I’m at work and can’t do a good enough search, but yeah the quick search I’m doing now is only pulling up “more political.” Could have been that the article was wrong and has since been corrected.
It’s also an easy misunderstanding to make for a journalist or online commentator because typically when somebody decries somebody “making something political” or “getting more political”, they mean in a way that they are not because to them, “their views aren’t political” even though they absolutely are.
Consider the source. Hard-core Righties consider anyone who isn’t as right wing as them to be Liberals. They could check every box in Conservative Bingo, but if they have the slightest concern about deporting people without due process, they are as Liberal as a San Francisco Homo.
Boomers complaining people are “turning left” cause their kid asked if Jesus really meant it when he said to feed the poor and treat others with human decency.
It doesn’t matter what you think or even I think. They already branded him as leftist. They are already attacking innocent people with political violence like the terrorists they are.
The reality is he was raised conservative in a conservative religion, in a conservative family, in a conservative town, and in a conservative state. He is one of them. They know this, I know this, but you seem confused.
I understand what sweep up means… I was saying that’s not what I’d want to be doing and it isn’t what I was attempting to do.
As for useful idiot, you’re literally assuming you know what you claim to be true… Just like you said, what you think or what I think doesn’t matter. I’m not “helping” them by my comment suggesting that we might end up embarrassed if they do end up having actual proof he’s a “left winger.” I’m of the mind that this is unfortunately more likely than not to be the case.
It is okay, you got caught up in the propaganda of what was his political leanings left or right. I am just here to tell you that your doing exactly what they want you to do. Hence the useful idiot
I am assuming the truth. Just like OP said. He is a product of conservative culture regardless if he embraced or denied it.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. At face value alone the alleged “Hey Fascist, Catch!” text on the casing is not something a right winger would say about their own ideological cousin, and if true as well, the shooter may have dated a trans individual. The preponderance of the circumstantial evidence we’ve been told (albeit with the caveat that we can’t trust news orgs that are kissing the ring) would seem to point towards the shooter aligning with left-leaning traits.
Edit: you downvoters need to check your cancel votes at the door. Just because there’s a possibility you might dislike the reality of the situation not turning out how you’d like.
It’s a reference to Helldivers 2, and a sufficiently brainrotted individual might very well just put internet references on there. Which he did. And it’s not like right wingers haven’t been misusing political terms for ages. Remember the term “feminazi”?
The shooter seems to have been involved in some deep internet culture and communities. You can’t just treat it like standard opinions, but under that internet lens, which is far less straightforward and filled with codewords. From an outside perspective a lot of that might seem straight up nonsensical when put together. My point is is simply that it’s inconclusive
Not that it matters much anyhow, as republicans will pin it on the left and trans people no matter what. They’re gearing up for a genocide and will use any excuse available
It’s definitely frustrating to see people absolutely refuse to accept that it might not be what they want it to be, meanwhile they’ll point to the right and laugh when they do it.
I’m just trying not to let what I want to be true make me believe 100% that it couldn’t be anything else. It’s kinda like the Epstein distraction “meme” that’s getting a bit frustrating… Every single thing that happens is suddenly branded a distraction from Epstein, completely ignoring more realistic reasoning for what is being done… Like Venezuela, we’re going to war with Venezuela not to cover for Epstein, but for one of a few reasons: as Carlin said “we’re an oil company with a military.” or to allow deportations to continue using the foreign enemies distinction that he was denied earlier as “we aren’t at war with the cartel” … Well now we are, or will be.
Do we know about the political views of the suspect? I know he supports guns but that does not make you automatically right wing
This is one of the biggest problems with our current state of polarization: we’re quick to box people into a binary; either “red” or “blue,” “left” or “right.”
Real people rarely fit neatly into those categories. When you take the time to actually map out someone’s beliefs, experiences, and values, what you find almost never looks like a solid block of one color. Instead, it’s more like a mosaic: someone might lean conservative on economic issues, progressive on social ones, independent when it comes to foreign policy, and undecided on others.
Reducing all of that complexity down to a single partisan label is not only misleading, it also fuels division. It makes it harder to have real conversations, because instead of engaging with the full person (their reasoning, contradictions, and growth), we engage with a caricature. Recognizing that most people carry a mix of beliefs forces us to slow down, listen, and resist the urge to collapse identities into overly simple categories.
The challenge is that this feels counterintuitive, especially for people who haven’t examined why they hold the views they do. It’s easier, and often more comforting, to inherit an identity or adopt a team than it is to wrestle with contradictions and gray areas. But when we refuse that deeper work, we not only misunderstand others, we also misunderstand ourselves.
In other words, the messiness is the point. People are complicated, and when we acknowledge that, we create more space for dialogue, empathy, and genuine understanding; the very things that binary polarization squeezes out.
Edit:
If you’re interested in seeing how this plays out in practice, the New York Times put together a quiz a few years back that illustrates the point really well:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-parties.html
Is there a way to interact with this quiz that doesn’t involve me giving the NYT a dollar?
Very well said, this is how i think as well. Here in switzerland it is exactly the same even though we have 5 major parties to choose from. This is also why direct democracy in switzerland is so amazing. You choose people that represent the parliment in parties while you still can vote different in referendums than your chosen party does.
From what I’ve heard, he was from a right wing family but there are conflicting reports on whether he himself was right wing
Probably a libertarian. Non party affiliated has been growing as people arent into fascist Republicans vs fiscal conservative policy and they dont want to be a Democrat in those states.
I know we have this, you are one party of the other thing but i think the “others” is gonna get bigger as a group and already has.
This is what i read as well. While not likely, it is totally possible he is not right wing
He was apparently dating a transgender person. That doesn’t necessarily make him left wing, but it means that in regards to transgender people, he probably didn’t fully agree with the right wing
Not all right wingers are against trans people. I‘d be surprised if ecen 50% are
From what I’ve pieced together, it’s a guy from a MAGA family that was recently radicalized, possibly in college towards left-wingism (possibly via exposure and humanization of trans room mate?). There’s not that much evidence to suggest he was a far-righter himself (the groyper claims are literally just “yeah the engravings are a dogwhistle trust me bro” but many libs here are buying it), and now it’s just turning into a war of push from both sides being like “no it’s not OUR guy it’s YOUR guy!”.
In other words, it’s impossible to tell for certain due to how deliberately muddied the waters are by everyone.
There’s equal evidence for the groyper claim as there is for the trans roommate claim, which is to say nothing but hearsay being pushed out by the Governor of Utah.
He went to UVU one semester and then left and went to trade school as an electrical apprentice. I highly doubt he got radicalized at college in Utah. He was already radicalized by his parents and family in the MAGA / Mormon spheres. It takes longer than a semester to deconstruct cult level beliefs like that. There is very little to any evidence that his roommate is trans. It is all hearsay picked up from places like 4-chan then spread to right-wing rags then spread to right wing politicans. A big loooong game of telephone. It isn’t even clear he lived there at the time of the shooting. The Daily Mail said he lives with his family in a $600,000 six-bedroom home.
The reason the trans - fan fic is getting spread by right-wingers is that the federal authorities are using it to get jurisdiction from the state since that could make it classify as a hate crime. Even if the roommate is trans that doesn’t mean they aren’t a right-wing trans person. Trans people can have shitty views just like any other group of people.
It doesn’t help that the FBI and news outlets are releasing different info to different news audiences to muddy the waters. Just the meta-data of this being the 3rd trans related storyline being pushed does not inspire confidence in it’s veracity. The first TRN one was debunked and retracted, but then they claim the engravings point to trans- ideology when that isn’t really apparent. Then they come up with another one. Sorry, not buying right-wingers making shit up to blame it on trans people.
Hold on… A hate crime? Jesus fucking Christ. Being a fascist asshole is 100% a choice. And their entire existence is a fucking hate crime.
The Trump regime doesn’t want a local jury of Mormon peers, they want to execute him federally and have control of the trial so that inconvenient information doesn’t come out.
MAGA was screaming that it was a radical leftist without ANY evidence… They are just looking for an excuse to justify using force against political opponents
If this kid had been “radicalized towards left-wingism” in any way, the media would be all over it and we wouldn’t be hearing the end of it.
Ding ding ding ding.
When you hear that he’s “not cooperating” today, that means the regime can’t convince him to tell everyone he’s really a liberal.
I am a big time left wing guy and I love guns. Of course I believe in gun control, but I do not believe in most gun bans.
Me too. I am left wing and shoot guns weekly. I live in switzerland and it is not a issue at all because there are strict regulations. You cannot aquire an automatic rifle without special permissions.
His family and city was, but it pretty likely seems he was not. Hard to be a republican if you’re living with (and allegedly dating) a trans.
It was only for one semester. And you’d be surprised how many white supremacists have had relationships with non-whites.
I think “we’re” going to end up with a lot of egg on our faces the more they investigate. I believe his parents have already told the authorities that “he’s been getting more into left wing ideology in the recent years” so I’m pretty sure its just a matter of time before it’s “proven.”
The only thing people have to go off of now is some tenuous connection to Nick Fuentes that doesn’t seem too solid.
This kid was different. He is not one of us! /S
What was fucking hilarious was the governor got on to reassure all Utahns that he was not like his parents, community, or state when he clearly is.
Your musings don’t matter he has already been branded by the liars as a leftist and your just here to sweep up after them like a good lackey.
Why the hell would I want to “sweet up” after them? I even used the term “we’re” to distinguish the fact that I’m not a right winger. I’m simply trying to stick to the only facts we have, I’m not letting what I want to be real get in the way of what reality seems to be.
I’m one of the last people who wants this to be a left wing guy, but I also won’t plug my ears and choose to believe something that might not be true based on some loose connections.
Where did you see he was turning left? Given his background with groupers, he’s got Internet brain rot and is trying to play lefty while doing what he did for the reasons stated are hardcore radical right.
Pause. Where did you see he had a background with groypers? Not speculation, but hard evidence. Not memes, but actual proof.
This is the problem today, speculation is treated as fact. Everyone pretends they have things figured out when they don’t know shit and are basing their beliefs off of unvetted internet posts.
In an article I read they stated that his parents were supposedly saying he started turning to the left in recent years. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen, but it would at least partially explain his not voting for Republicans and registration as independent.
What background has been proven that he has a history with groypers? The only thing I’ve seen are the bullet engravings, but unfortunately he managed to pick every single meme that could go either way… They all have a history of starting one way and being used in another, even the helldiver’s reference could be a fascist misunderstanding the point of helldiver’s, or a left winger understanding and using it as anti-fascist.
The article I saw said he was getting more “political“ recently, not explicitly more left-wing…
If you didn’t vote in '22 or '24, and had the ability, you’re not a progressive or liberal, full stop.
Yeah and if he had been getting more lefty they would have said that, not the intentionally vague “more political”.
I wish I had it saved since I’m at work and can’t do a good enough search, but yeah the quick search I’m doing now is only pulling up “more political.” Could have been that the article was wrong and has since been corrected.
It’s also an easy misunderstanding to make for a journalist or online commentator because typically when somebody decries somebody “making something political” or “getting more political”, they mean in a way that they are not because to them, “their views aren’t political” even though they absolutely are.
Consider the source. Hard-core Righties consider anyone who isn’t as right wing as them to be Liberals. They could check every box in Conservative Bingo, but if they have the slightest concern about deporting people without due process, they are as Liberal as a San Francisco Homo.
You can’t let MAGAs choose the labels.
LOL.
Boomers complaining people are “turning left” cause their kid asked if Jesus really meant it when he said to feed the poor and treat others with human decency.
Yeah, it’s probably the fact that he went to college for a semester. To them that means he was indoctrinated into leftism.
Sweep up is a reference to cleaning up.
It doesn’t matter what you think or even I think. They already branded him as leftist. They are already attacking innocent people with political violence like the terrorists they are.
The reality is he was raised conservative in a conservative religion, in a conservative family, in a conservative town, and in a conservative state. He is one of them. They know this, I know this, but you seem confused.
They have a name for this and it is useful idiot.
I understand what sweep up means… I was saying that’s not what I’d want to be doing and it isn’t what I was attempting to do.
As for useful idiot, you’re literally assuming you know what you claim to be true… Just like you said, what you think or what I think doesn’t matter. I’m not “helping” them by my comment suggesting that we might end up embarrassed if they do end up having actual proof he’s a “left winger.” I’m of the mind that this is unfortunately more likely than not to be the case.
It is okay, you got caught up in the propaganda of what was his political leanings left or right. I am just here to tell you that your doing exactly what they want you to do. Hence the useful idiot
I am assuming the truth. Just like OP said. He is a product of conservative culture regardless if he embraced or denied it.
deleted by creator
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. At face value alone the alleged “Hey Fascist, Catch!” text on the casing is not something a right winger would say about their own ideological cousin, and if true as well, the shooter may have dated a trans individual. The preponderance of the circumstantial evidence we’ve been told (albeit with the caveat that we can’t trust news orgs that are kissing the ring) would seem to point towards the shooter aligning with left-leaning traits.
Edit: you downvoters need to check your cancel votes at the door. Just because there’s a possibility you might dislike the reality of the situation not turning out how you’d like.
Don’t forget the arrows after the quote, though
It’s a reference to Helldivers 2, and a sufficiently brainrotted individual might very well just put internet references on there. Which he did. And it’s not like right wingers haven’t been misusing political terms for ages. Remember the term “feminazi”?
The shooter seems to have been involved in some deep internet culture and communities. You can’t just treat it like standard opinions, but under that internet lens, which is far less straightforward and filled with codewords. From an outside perspective a lot of that might seem straight up nonsensical when put together. My point is is simply that it’s inconclusive
Not that it matters much anyhow, as republicans will pin it on the left and trans people no matter what. They’re gearing up for a genocide and will use any excuse available
It’s definitely frustrating to see people absolutely refuse to accept that it might not be what they want it to be, meanwhile they’ll point to the right and laugh when they do it.
I’m just trying not to let what I want to be true make me believe 100% that it couldn’t be anything else. It’s kinda like the Epstein distraction “meme” that’s getting a bit frustrating… Every single thing that happens is suddenly branded a distraction from Epstein, completely ignoring more realistic reasoning for what is being done… Like Venezuela, we’re going to war with Venezuela not to cover for Epstein, but for one of a few reasons: as Carlin said “we’re an oil company with a military.” or to allow deportations to continue using the foreign enemies distinction that he was denied earlier as “we aren’t at war with the cartel” … Well now we are, or will be.