TPM / Josh Marshall: Why Are Publications Sugar-Coating Livilsberger's Political Minifestos?

[Dennis Donovan]

TPM / Josh Marshall - Why Are Publications Sugar-Coating Livilsberger’s Political Minifestos?

By Josh Marshall
January 4, 2025 10:51 a.m.

Over the last four days the bizarre Cybertruck fire outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas has run from comical interlude to possible terrorist incident to tragic suicide of another veteran of America’s forever wars. Each of these descriptions still captures an important part of the story. As I noted yesterday, while Matthew Livelsberger appears to have had a series of combustible and likely abusive relationships going back many years he appears to have suffered from PTSD and possibly a traumatic brain injury since returning from a tour of duty in 2019. (I’m tentative on the spousal abuse front only because for now the direct evidence for that that I’m aware of comes only from the friend of his ex-wife.) But at least for the moment there is a pretty striking lack of attention to the political motives he expressed in at least two documents or what I guess we might call minifestos that investigators found on his iphone.

They denounce Democrats and demand they be “culled” from Washington, by violence if necessary, and hopes his death will serve as a kind of bell clap for a national rebirth of masculinity under the leadership of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Bobby Kennedy Jr.

Did you miss that stuff? Yeah, me too!

In the headlines the latest news has only been that he warned of national decline and bore “no ill will toward Mr. Trump” in the words of one of the investigators. That gloss on Donald Trump is, shall we say, a bit of an understatement as you can see in these excerpts.



/snip

[Autumn]

1. What a gutless asshole. Didn't have the guts to do anything just wants other people to do what he wants

done but is afraid to do it.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. He was MAGA

Now were he a liberal, well…

[Silent Type]

3. I've seen his "manifestos" discussed on/in CNN, CBS, WaPo, ABC, NBC, and more. Don't think anyone is ignoring it.

[Raine1967]

8. The AP certainly ignored the manifesto.

https://apnews.com/article/cybertruck-explosion-trump-hotel-las-vegas-6c85af85255753db497f2cd344fb2ace

Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

No mentions of a manifesto, just 'notes'.

It's not even on the Front page of WaPo. I watched CBS Saturday Morning earlier and nothing like this was mentioned.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I just haven't seen it. TPM was the first.

[BoRaGard]

4. corporate media "journalists" are failing America

by and large

they are also failing at a level of personal integrity, by minimizing or sane washing the fascist takeover of America.

sad

[MiHale]

5. They are not journalists anymore...they're opinionists...

and most have no original opinion they parrot the opinion of others.

[Attilatheblond]

14. Stenographers

They just take notes and share what they are told by the people using them for propaganda. Not many journalists left and they are close to starving due to corporations gobbling up print media.

[DallasNE]

16. We Used To Call

Journalists like this stenographers because that is what they were really doing - passing along other people's ideas.

[BOSSHOG]

6. And then what happens after the purge is complete?

Those damn conservatives never follow through. They just break stuff and move on. But move on the where?

And Matty I just ain’t feeling the masculinity thing. You apparently purposefully kill yourself and suggest that is part of a solution? And it should make me feel badass?

[lame54]

7. One down. Many to go...

I'm talking about Cyber Trucks, of course

[pnwmom]

9. I don't think it's wise to spread this around to even more crazies. nt

[Quanto Magnus]

10. So the guy has taken MAGAt to it's logical conclusion...

GOP = party of nutjobs

[Scrivener7]

11. That could have been written by a Fox News personality. Probably each of those things has been said there.

[JoseBalow]

12. A Twofer! Great way to get those ugly cybertrucks off the road

I don't care how you cultists do it, it's the thought that counts!

[senseandsensibility]

13. I just caught a snippet of coverage of this on CNN and I agree

Left it on after the coverage of Jimmy Carter, and noticed the same thing. References to "failed leadership" etc. but nothing about the completely pro trump pro maga stuff. Hmm.... curious.

[Dennis Donovan]

15. Pointed out in this Bluesky post:

Tom Scocca
‪@tomscocca.bsky.social‬
Two disturbed guys rent trucks and commit public acts of violence to deliver explicit ideological messages: one gets the scare story about who radicalized him, the other gets a sympathetic, nonpolitical account of his trauma

‪Tom Scocca‬ ‪
@tomscocca.bsky.social‬
28m
Come ON

January 4, 2025 at 2:42 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/tomscocca.bsky.social/post/3lewuftwmok2x