Gunman shot dead in Mar-a-Lago was ‘fixated on Epstein files’ and big Trump supporter

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/austin-martin-mar-a-lago-suspect-b2925443.html

Once again, political violence stems from Republican ideology.

583 points · 91 comments · view on lemmy.world

91 Comments

ceenote@lemmy.world · 174 pts · 180d (10 replies)

I'm beginning to think MAGA attracts mentally unsound people.

MBech@feddit.dk · 79 pts · 180d (4 replies)

Well sure, but wanting to kill the pedo in chief is pretty sane in my book.

WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 180d (1 reply)

Unfortunately the crazies tend to be crazy because of their poor critical thought, logic, and reasoning skills; meaning they're largely incompetent as resistance fighters or assassins, which require a great deal of skill, planning, and logistics (especially in a surveillance state, targeting the most protected people on earth).

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 179d

They make great kamikazis though, for those "one and done" situations.

Hawke@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 180d (1 reply)

“Right for the wrong reasons”

tetris11@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 179d

A broken clock can be kindle for gasoline, twice

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 179d

It definitely attracts Pedophiles.

Harvey656@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d

No no, too early to decide that. Gonna need a couple dozen more extreme once in a lifetime violent events to be sure.

Soulphite@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 180d (2 replies)

Beginning? I can read your sarcasm, maybe... but just to be certain, after little more than a decade, just now starting to think this?

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 180d (1 reply)

That was definitely a joke.

moonshadow@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 180d

I'm beginning to suspect it may have been

dhork@lemmy.world · 142 pts · 180d (8 replies)

But it's still the Radical Left who's at fault.

He drove himself there in his own car, right? He "trans"-ported himself? Trump told us the trans community was dangerous!

Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de · 40 pts · 180d

Car had a trans mission. Bake em away toys

SkyezOpen@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 180d (3 replies)

He often complained that young people needed more than one job to survive and had tried to start a union at his workplace to push for better wages.

Sounds like a radical lefty to me! Case closed boys.

You could read off a socialist manifesto and 90% of republicans would completely agree as long as you didn't say any buzzwords. The mental disconnect is astounding.

GreenBeard@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 180d (2 replies)

That's actually the point. They're trained with a Pavlovian reaction to specific words. Their pundits and influencers have trained them with this twisted, inverted "Evil Sesame Street" programming to react with unhinged rage to specific words and phrases. In many cases they largely want the same things, but actually describing those things is impossible because of this conditioning.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 179d

It's called the Conservative Propaganda Machine.

rbos@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 180d

That phenomenon has definitely fnord been observed fnord for some time.

Soulphite@reddthat.com · 16 pts · 180d (1 reply)

"Yup sure look like one of them girls that wanna be a boy to me... case. closed."

MAGA idiots definitely

thesohoriots@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 180d

Enter the people on twitter who draw green lines on people and practice phrenology

tburkhol@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 180d
moonshadow@slrpnk.net · 94 pts · 180d (22 replies)

"Why aren't Americans doing anything?" then y'all shit on the Florida Man creeping into the presidential palace with a shotgun and gas can

pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 39 pts · 179d (8 replies)

“Why aren’t Americans doing anything?”

Those are trolls trying to cause chaos. It's obviously suicide if anyone does what the trolls are telling them to do.

  • Alex Pretti, did nothing wrong and was executed after they took his gun
  • This guy
peopleproblems@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 179d (6 replies)

It's sort of why I'm vocal when I see those comments pop up. Remind them that it's a stupid position to have to start with, anyone actually planning to do something knows what OPSEC is, and they know any action has to be extraordinarily precise, not just shooting at feds.

GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 179d (2 replies)

But it is a valid counter-argument to the validity of the second amendment. Even if you got a thousand or two of your well-armed friends together to topple the tyranny, you would likely only win the battle and not the war.

peopleproblems@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 179d (1 reply)

I don't think we were talking about that?

GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 179d

No, it's tangential to this, but still related.

FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d (2 replies)

It’s sort of why I’m vocal when I see those comments pop up. Remind them that it’s a stupid position to have to start with

More people need to do this, anybody calling for violence on social media is either a provocateur/non-US National or a dangerously naive American who will cause more harm than good.

There are many roads to a good outcome through peaceful means, once someone starts to resort to violence the options rapidly become limited. Anyone who thinks that we should move into that second world is actively dangerous to everyone that lives in the US.

pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 178d

Minnesota is the perfect example of this.

RainbowHedgehog@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 177d

For anyone that doesn’t believe, I use articles from Waging Nonviolence. I also follow an expert on nonviolent resistance, Erica Chenoweth, on BlueSky.

RainbowHedgehog@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 178d

What gets me is that Americans are constantly doing stuff. I remember during March of last year people kept going on about how the French burned Tesla cars but Americans were “doing nothing.”

They kept saying this while there was constant vandalism all across the country. Reddit wouldn’t allow posts on the topic, so many didn’t know it was happening.

Even with the vandalism, that isn’t what took down DOGE. The biggest hit was simply the boycott and divestment from Tesla stocks.

Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 179d

He was just exercising his Second Amendment rights! And apparently the right to bear fuel as well. Maybe he just wanted to talk with his hero about the pizzagate evidence he's sure must be in those files someplace. I'm pretty sure we only have the officers' word he brandished the gun.

butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social · 10 pts · 179d (10 replies)

Euro-Lemmings believe both that Americans are recklessly married to vigilante political violence and also that they don't do anything ever, it just depends on whatever belief, at any given point in time, allows them to whine about the US.

Deceptichum@quokk.au · 5 pts · 179d (8 replies)
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butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social · 12 pts · 179d (7 replies)

Yeah I whine about it a lot too, the point is that there is literally no action an American can take that's correct. Do something? Rash, juvenile, doomed to fail, too violent, they should have large protests and walkouts instead. Protest in the street? Too civil, pointless, also doomed to fail, why aren't Americans taking up arms by the millions to kill the government. Every action is the wrong one.

CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 179d (2 replies)

I'm glad I wasn't the only person to notice.

FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 179d (1 reply)

What you both are noticing is a tactic of propaganda called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

The goal of this propaganda is to promote a feeling of hopelessness, on a large scale this will decrease political participation ("why vote, it doesn't matter anyway, laws don't matter they'll just ignore them, the idea in the OP is dumb and anyone who thinks this will work is too"). By targeting the social spaces of the opposing party (or all parties in the cases of some nation-states) the adversary can attack the morale of the population, disrupting or delaying a cohesive response.

It doesn't take too much creativity (and now, with LLMs, absolutely none) to make posts that say some variation of 'that won't work and you are dumb' on every topic. This is why you have this perception of a mass amount of criticism, it's being fabricated at scale across all of social media (Fediverse spaces had a brief period of obscurity but are now part of the propaganda campaigns).

That isn't to say that there are not legit criticisms, but they are being signal boosted significantly as part of these FUD campaigns.

CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 178d

I've been calling it the "Reddit Defeatist Brigade". As your comment states it isn't confined to reddit. I wondered if it was some sort of propaganda because it's so prevalent. Now I know.

BenevolentOne@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 179d

It's your stupid monkey brain thinking that you are talking to 'that one guy called internet' instead of thousands of tens of thousands of different people.

Deceptichum@quokk.au · -1 pts · 179d (2 replies)
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butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social · 6 pts · 179d

Hmmm, almost like that should be the approach with large, continental polities with a plethora of regional political subcultures in it.

RainbowHedgehog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 178d
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Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 179d

Strawmericans, if you will.

WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 178d

I’ve got more respect for this dipshit than I do for any American sitting at home picking their battles in 2026.

Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk · 75 pts · 179d (16 replies)

So every attempt on his life so far has been checks notes a MAGAT.

And apparently liberals are the problem?

Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 179d (10 replies)

Seems to me they're rapidly de-converted MAGAs that are completely lost and isolated (because they've been in a cult for 10 years) and full of vengeful rhetoric.

I have another theory, but it's admittedly pretty out there.

NotSafeForWorld@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 178d (9 replies)

Color me intrigued. What's this other theory?

Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 178d (8 replies)

Reading more about this story I don't think it applies in this case. It really does seem like someone who's worldview was shattered by the Epstein files, or maybe not....

For some of these shootings, like the kid who shot and killed one of Trump's audience members, where Trump got a bloody ear and they lowered the flag behind him for the photo op, I think it was something like that episode of Black Mirror where they got the pedofiles to fight each other to the death. A team of hackers baits online sex offenders into blackmail and threatens to tell their families if they don't accept their suicide mission (they may actually even promise protection). I believe that kid was told to shoot into the audience behind Trump, and they chose an "ex" (not actually, still current) Trump supporter that they could convince this was for the greater good, because a Trump hater might have actually made the shot on him. All attacks like this have done so far is get Trump a few sympathy points (though we're seeing diminishing returns now with these things). I believe people like Eric Prince and even Epstein run/ran operations like this.

Stormy@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 178d (7 replies)

I'd buy that for a dollar.

And add my own conspiracythat the photo and event, (an assassination attempt) was important for the religious nuts that are following this guy like puppies.

It's in their death cult plans that the anti-christ miraculously survives an assassination attempt. A lot of the weird preformative stuff he's done ticks their boxes of the anti-christ.

Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 178d (6 replies)

Yeah, there's literally something in there about the anti-christ surviving what appears to be a fatal head wound, but I don't understand why Theil and the gang would simultaneously be hinting at people like Greta Thorberg (I think that's her name? (and Ill loose my train of thought if I look it up)) being the antichrist while also putting together these theatrics to make Trump look like the anti-christ? Maybe one story is meant to convert non-believers and the other is meant to manipulate those that already believe, and he knows those two bubbles don't intersect in the discourse?

Stormy@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 178d (4 replies)

I think the goal was to get the real loony religous people on board. Like rural south judges, and people like mike johnson and pence and the lady he put on the Supreme Court. Those people that have been planning for Armageddon for their entire lives.

Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 178d

If the rumors about Johnson are true, he's more like Theil when it comes it religion, it's a tool, a thread to weave. I think it's just a lot easier to move money around if enough of the general population thinks it's in preparation for Armageddon, and defending god's "holy" land while it's really just imperialist expansionism by proxy. Huckabee this week said Israel has the right to most of the middle east. They're planning more long term than for an apocalypse. Always remember, with Huckabee, Bibi, the Ayatollah, they don't want to die, they want power. Even their apparent self-fulfilling prophecy is false. lol

Stormy@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 172d
zenitsu@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 179d

Imagine you spent maybe a decade at this point carrying water for mr mango mussolini, and because of it family members and friends stopped talking with you...only for you to finally realise, in 2026, that you spent that whole time looking like an absolute loser braindead clown while you defended a treasonous criminal pedo.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 179d

Duh, obviously this guy was a drag queen.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 179d

But it's the Liberals who have "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Patrikvo@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 179d

Well, it's quite obviously actually. Alot of MAGAs are farmers and those are known for getting up very early in the morning. I'm just saying the line is long and they were first in line.

FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 177d

My favourite theory about the assassination attempt back in 2024 was that he was told to kill the president and, in his mind, Trump was president. Not saying I believe it but I like it

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 52 pts · 180d (2 replies)

As predicted, the gunman was a armed, dangerous and stupid right winger. Actually too stupid to check if his target was actually on location.

One thing about a large supply of armed idiots is that this offers more chances. They only need to get lucky once...

kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 34 pts · 180d (1 reply)

As predicted, the gunman was a armed, dangerous and stupid right winger

That's the description of every person who has tried to take a shot at Trump, isn't it?

Treczoks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d
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gibmiser@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 180d (1 reply)

Fucking sad. 21 year old kid just getting started in life. Disillusioned because our government isn't doing anything to fight corruption or help the average person.

Drusas@fedia.io · 2 pts · 179d

Run they said to a promised land Run and find us a helping hand Don't come back till the sun is gone Don't come back till the war is won

We all set out with our hearts in hand A cold wind covered up a line in the sand All so young Nothing to lose Pieces of silver and a dead mans shoes

KnitWit@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 180d (1 reply)

Called it when it was first announced. That’s 4 out of 4 now.

Soulphite@reddthat.com · 20 pts · 180d

Batting a thousand MAGA! They're number one!

tidderuuf@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 180d (4 replies)

Every news network: "Why are there so many violent threats against Trump and his allies from the left?"

Meanwhile Trump posts an AI generated video of himself punching Canadian hockey players.

kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 180d (2 replies)

Meanwhile Trump posts an AI generated video of himself punching Canadian hockey players.

I dare him to try that in real life.

Dojan@pawb.social · 6 pts · 179d (1 reply)

Think that'd work out just fine for him because if a player attempted to retaliate, he has his secret service agents there to gun them down.

kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 179d

I meant a one-on-one fair fight.

And, yes I understand that Trump would never do anything that required it to be fair.

rbos@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 179d

Wow. I'm not not even mad about that. Quite the self own. What a child.

0ndead@infosec.pub · 31 pts · 180d (2 replies)

Come on q-anon, now is your time to shine!

TallonMetroid@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 180d (1 reply)

"I must stop the pedos!" QAnon yelled.

"No QAnon, you are the pedos."

And then QAnon was Epstein.

osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org · 6 pts · 180d

Man, that would have been a plot twist for the ages

Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca · 26 pts · 179d
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Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 180d (1 reply)

And all you'll hear on Fox News and from various mouth-breathing right wing influencers is that it was a radical left woke Marxist gay trans Democrat.

blitzen@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 180d

Which is explicitly and purposefully what they accused Kimmel of and with which they attempted to remove him from tv. That air/cable is treated differently is very 1980s, and should be adjusted to the reality of today.

arin@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 179d

I respect former magas who wake up but still stick to their 2a. Need more of them to wake up and go to aim training

Typhoon@lemmy.ca · 23 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Gunman shot dead in Mar-a-Lago was ‘fixated on Epstein files’

Did he think they were kept in the bathroom?

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 19 pts · 179d
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 179d

That's where I would look.

lennybird@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 179d

To me if I had to bet this sounds like a classic case of the smartest Trump supporter (now I know that isn't saying much) in the family having the spell broken, and disillusioned, getting extremely upset at realizing he and his family have been duped.

SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 179d (2 replies)

To hear how the media treats it, he's bigly ANTIFA.

Formfiller@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 178d

The media is owned by the pedofile class

PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 178d

One could make the argument that his actions supported Antifa, but only insofar as he attacked literal fascists.

dan69@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 179d

Deceptichum@quokk.au · 5 pts · 179d
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epicthundercat@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 178d

...If any of them were smart they would target Bohemian Grove or something else... Get more bang for your buck that way... Seems like a waste of time and ones life to break into Mar A Lago for what, one dude? Not saying I condone it! Just saying... efficiency?

Big brain thinking but I am just small brained mom woman so I will get back to my working and house cleaning and sandwich making.

fox2263@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 180d

Honestly thought that was John Carmack at first.

WanderWisley@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 179d

This won’t be the last time this happens…

Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 178d (2 replies)

The classic response from his cousin, "he's a good kid..." Bullshit, being MAGA means your are a POS.

Triasha@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 178d (1 reply)

He tried to start a union at his workplace. He wasn't all bad.

Formfiller@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 178d

And he seemed to realize Trump was a traitor and Epstein conspirator. It probably sucks to be raised with idiot republicans

TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 179d (1 reply)

wtf is that photo of the shotgun and canister? some collectible from a horror videogame? why does it look so shit

saimen@feddit.org · 1 pts · 179d

Its photo of a bad photo

MortUS@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 178d (1 reply)

Not Joe Pera!

in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 178d

Bark bark.