Kudos to CNN for reporting this, although it’s just as off-point as the lunatic rantings of the shooter in El Paso. A look at the now-suspended Twitter account of the Dayton suspect shows him not to be an alt-right nutcase, but instead a cute and cuddly Antifa supporter and self-professed “leftist.” Toss in a #HailSatan hashtag or two, and the picture becomes complete.

That last point might be the only truly meaningful revelation:

A Twitter account that appears to belong to Dayton mass shooter [redacted — Ed] retweeted extreme left-wing and anti-police posts, as well as tweets supporting Antifa, or anti-fascist, protesters.

The most recent tweet on the @iamthespookster account was on August 3, the day of the shooting, when he retweeted a post saying, “Millenials have a message for the Joe Biden generation: hurry up and die.” He also retweeted messages supporting Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The user’s Twitter bio reads: “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / I’m going to hell and I’m not coming back.” One tweet used the hashtag #HailSatan. …

The account also retweeted posts against ICE agents, including one that said, “these people are monsters,” and multiple posts condemning police, and supporting Antifa protesters, who often use violent tactics.

Why redact the name? CNN correctly included it to report the news, but I’m not going to amplify this loser’s profile by including his name. You can find it at the link if you really want to know it. He’s dead now, thanks to the amazing response from the Dayton police department, so we don’t need to cover a trial or deal with his whiny excuses for why he killed nine more worthwhile members of society.

The comparison between the politics between the two shooters is very instructive, though, and much more instructive than either of them on their own. The sad truth is that manifesto-bearing lone-wolf lunatics get attracted to extreme politics and then act out using politics as an excuse. Their actions have little or nothing to do with the issues involved, even though they may be attracted to already-extant violent elements on either end of the political spectrum (neo-Nazis on one end, Antifa on the other). It’s an excuse for their lunacy. They’re already anti-social; they’re seeking out a brand and a rationalization, as well as mass attention after the fact. The Unabomber might be the granddaddy of that model.

The Dayton massacre speaks as much to hard-left politics and Elizabeth Warren as the El Paso shooter does about hard-right politics and Donald Trump … which is to say, not at all. Lone-wolf lunatics and sociopaths bearing manifestos and targeting randos represent no one but themselves by their very nature, so why assign any meaning at all to their actions? CNN’s report gives us a rare moment of clarity on that point. Let’s hope more people learn the lesson and in doing so lessen the incentives for more of this murderous evil.

Update: It’s not as if this was a surprise to the people around him, either:

As investigators attempt to piece together why a 24-year-old man clad in body armor opened fire outside a popular Dayton bar, people from his past point to hit lists, violent threats and a fascination with shootings that they now say were clearly red flags. …

In interviews with The Associated Press, two former high school classmates claimed [perp] was once suspended for compiling a “hit list” of those he wanted to kill and a “rape list” of girls he wanted to sexually assault.

NBC News has not independently verified their accounts, which came to light after police said there was nothing in the gunman’s background that would have kept him from buying the .223-caliber rifle used in the shooting.

The former classmates, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity out of concern they might face harassment, claimed [perp] was suspended during his junior year at Bellbrook High School after the “hit list” was found scrawled in a campus bathroom.

The discovery purportedly came after an earlier suspension over a “rape list” that [perp] brought to school, according to the classmates, a man and a woman now both 24.

Maybe someone should have gotten law enforcement involved at that point. It might have complicated the man’s ability to purchase firearms.