The guy is a hot mental mess, but like with Crooks, the Right is desperate to paint him as a leftist.
“One definitely has to consider that he firebombed a Jewish governor’s residence on Passover. I don’t think that can be ignored.”
penncapital-star.com
Balmer’s Facebook posts delve into politics, but provide no clear evidence of his allegiances. Dauphin County voter registration records show he chose not to be affiliated with any party.
Baumgartner, the extremism researcher at George Washington University, said social media is often used to assess ideological leanings of a suspect in a high profile crime, but cautioned that the initial readings don’t give a full picture.
He noted that Thomas Matthew Crooks, whom the FBI identified as the gunman who fired at now-President Donald Trump during a July campaign rally, killing a supporter and injuring two others, initially appeared to have no extreme ideological leanings. The FBI later said a social media account believed to belong to Crooks espoused political violence and anti-immigrant and anti-semitic sentiments.
Many of Balmer’s more recent posts are marked private or have been deleted and no posts more recent than the summer of 2023 were visible Sunday.
Those that are available include videos from conservative former Hawaii U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, now director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, and former Libertarian U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
His posts express
opposition to former President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump, the GOP and the Democratic Party. He also posted memes critical of the COVID-19 pandemic response, suggesting that the media and government overreacted and taking pride in disobeying lockdown orders.
Another theme among his posts are memes with misogynistic and degrading messages about women and male erasure. “Toxic women destroy good men too, but we barely talk about that,” one post says.
There was also at least one post praising a man who was arrested after allegedly hitting dozens of women and another depicting former comedian Bill Cosby suggesting that women he was convicted (and later cleared) of assaulting were promiscuous before he allegedly drugged them.
Baumgartner said misogyny is often an underlying motivation in far-right extremism, but
Balmer doesn’t appear to fit neatly into any ideological category and seems to draw from several. He also expressed opposition to racism and endorsed many traditionally liberal values.
“
I didn’t see anything that is indicative of any extremist ideology,” Baumgartner said. “For the most part, it was just sort of run-of-the-mill, ‘I don’t like either party’ content.’”
nypost.com
