What additional evidence do you need? He was asked directly by the state what party he considers himself a supporter of, and he said Republican.
Conservatives are going to try to disown him no matter what. Don’t let their endless bad faith requests for additional proof convince you that the facts here aren’t straightforward.
No no no. Voter party affiliation on voter registration doesn’t mean anything on its own. People change their registered parties all the time to vote in the other party’s primaries and such. Also sometimes people forget to switch back.
For kids, their party affiliation is going to be whatever their parents are (lest they be disowned by their family). For kids, their political views can and do change radically from 18 to 25.
Party affiliation on voter registration means nothing in the case of the shooter.
We may never be able to put him on so narrow a box, but he was registered, a gun nut, and he didn’t donate to Dems - that was just someone with the same name in the same state.
That’s not confirmation, but thus far there isn’t any reason to believe otherwise.
But also he was 20. It’s likely he didn’t have a strong personal affiliation with any political party.
Not in any way that will convince someone who doesn’t want to believe it, but for reasonable folks…
Smith shared an American history class with Crooks, and remembered a mock debate where their teacher made students stand on one side of the classroom or another to signal their allegiance. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”
This was years ago. Kids change really quickly as they grow up. Ask me how I know. I used to be a kid in high school who was spouting my parents’ bullshit conservative christian views. After high school I started thinking for myself and left all that toxic garbage behind.