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The suspect is a green party voter and nudist activist, I don't think he fits easily into national party boxes.
Predictably Twitter is all in on labeling this as fascist right wing terrorism.
Well, as the Reuters article says:
Unless this is a case of mistaken identity, it would be the Trump support, QAnon etc. that would be the reason for the label "far-right terrorism".
Really, do you think that it's impossible that this guy would go from being a Green Party voter to QAnon conspiracy theorism? I consider it very plausible, as such movement has been seen otherwise in similar circles during the Trump/Covid years.
One thing I've noted - generally, not just related to this case, and of course reporting might still change, as it is often wont to do - is that there are many right-wingers who are perfectly able to understand that left-wingers may often turn rightwards, even abruptly so, who find such developments and see-the-light movements expected, who have even done it themselves... but, if such a person happens to do something crazy, will immediately start going "Oh, see these old Facebook posts from years ago, look at his hippie hobbies, look at what a weirdo he is... clear case of left-wing terrorism, once again the media is blaming the right for no reason at all" and so on.
I do think that anyone who flips between extreme ideologies is a bad example to be used for any wide swath of the population. He probably was animated in part by far right conspiracy theories but also in part because he's just fundamentally a weird extremist. If it wasn't this in two years maybe he's doing eco terrorism or giving his life to some other extreme position. People like this are weird.
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It makes him a very non-central example when used for attacks on the right in general, as the media uses him.
Non-central to what? Right-wingers in general?
Are they just supposed to not mention his recently expressed political views in connection to an attack on a politician?
Mentioning it, and spinning it as related to the more usual kind of right-wingers, are different.
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Did they manage to just not mention who he voted for?
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Not national party boxes, but "Green Party voter some years ago, nudist activists, generally hippy-dippy, now posting Mike Lindell and conspiracy theorist stuff" would fit him quite well to new-ager-to-far-right-within-last-two-years QAnon/antivaxx pipeline box.
Question then is how the hell he got to QAnon from Green Party.
Marin County is an antivax stronghold, yo. There is more than one kind of Democratic voter.
It’s where RFK, Jr. holds luncheons about autism at wineries.
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Like I said, there's a very clear pipeline with more than a few treaders. You're active in various hippy-dippy New Age circles, which are probably amenable to conspiracy theories and other "occult knowledge", as well as alternative medicine types, anti-vaxx thinking, general health contrarianism, suspicious of mainstream parties etc.
The conspiracy theory mindset might already make you somewhat amenable to QAnon (which has always had more than a bit of a New Age vibe with its talk of Great Awakening etc.) before Covid hits, but Covid, at the latest, flips you firmly against the consensus mindset that sees Ivermectin, hydrocloroquine and other alternative treatments as bad and lockdowns particularly vaccines as the only solution. Within the American context, pretty much the only option that remains is the conspiracy-oriented far right. Everything else just comes with the territory then.
The kind of alt medicine is meaningfully different though- instead of essential oils and chakras the conspiracy right is advocating, basically, offlabel uses of legit medicine.
In my experience, the altmed crowd is pretty flexible about this, ie. "anything goes as long as it's not conventional". And I've myself tracked a number of local health mommy / healing crystal types drifting steadily towards rightwards during/due to the COVID period, it's not just a theoretical movement.
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