It IS weird though that he tried to shoot the Rep candidate and I can't really see why, yet. We will probably hear a lot of explanations for this and I'd be curious about yours.
So far I have heard rumours about a possible inside job/secret service involvement as an explanation, because they should have been aware of him. Might be, but I personally haven't seen anything too convincing to verify or falsify this.
Another one I could see is that he wanted to vote Republican but at some point realized that Trump sucks ass to put it mildly. So he tried to somehow push the Rep party to at least get back in touch with the idea of sanity by killing him?
Other than that... make Trump a martyr somehow? Have a plot to blame it on the Dems? Mental issues?
Just because someone is unwell doesn't mean that reason can't be applied to his motives. Most mental illnesses still follow some (twisted and perverse) logic
There are two explanations which I don't find ludicrous, if you assume the shooter to be far right:
He was a Qanoner who bought the "we've gotta hunt the pedophiles" but didn't develop the cognitive dissonance to also think "but that doesn't mean Trump obviously".
He was angry about Trump trying to distance himself from Project 2025 (even though that was merely rhetoric, but an angry and radical 20 years old may not understand that).
This is quite a significant incident in the middle of an important election campaign. While some reasons for the attempt may seem insignificant (e.g., mental illness), others could turn out to be quite important moving forward (e.g., involvement of secret service, faked attempt by Trump's team etc.). Any evidence for or against any of these could have political implications and effects on the election results.
Trump had people hire him to pretend to assassinate him, and he went along with it thinking it'd boost Trump's ratings (Kinda dumb and conspiratorial)
He wasn't aiming for Trump, but someone in the crowd, and Trump was hit by mistake (Given that he doesn't aim for center of mass, this makes sense)
He wanted to kill Trump, fearing he wasn't Right Leaning enough (There are already people bashing Vance not for being racist, but for not being racist enough)
Also wasn't the payment to the Biden campaign found to actually be someone else with a similar name?
Also wasn't the payment to the Biden campaign found to actually be someone else with a similar name?
The donation was to ActBlue not Biden and the FEC filing was his name at the house he lived at. It's unlikely it was someone else unless he was named for his grandpa or something and he lived with them
You can view the FEC filings yourself by going to the FEC website and search his name and zip code in the individual contribution search.
Another theory is that he might have thought it would accelerate the right leaning movement by killing or wounding Trump. It is also possible he liked the movement but not Trump.
Theories 1 and 2 don’t make any sense. Trump has too much of an ego for 1 and 2 would be weird. If you aren’t going after Trump, anyone else would be easier to shoot when not next to Trump.
Another one I could see is that he wanted to vote Republican but at some point realized that Trump sucks ass to put it mildly. So he tried to somehow push the Rep party to at least get back in touch with the idea of sanity by killing him?
I could see that happening. While I still dislike it, conservatism by itself is a valid ideology. Maybe he believed in the core principles of the party (small government, free market, christianity, etc.) and was sick of the main candidate being a lying fascist that is the spitting image of the biblical antichrist.