When shooters are MAGA and anti-LGBTQ+, the right suddenly loses its appetite for conspiracy theories

Tragically, another week in America, and more mass shootings. A Mormon church in Michigan. And from a boat, shots were fired into a waterfront bar in North Carolina. Different places, different victims, different families left shattered.

Yet there was one glaring similarity, and that is that both shooters were reportedly fueled by MAGA, anti-LGBTQ+ rage.

Related: FBI report: Despite overall crime drop, anti-LGBTQ+ violence remains alarmingly high

Let the silence from the far right and the Trump administration begin.

Where are the wall-to-wall news stories dissecting every detail of their families? Where are the frantic Kash Patel and Pam Bondi tweets connecting roommates or cousins or neighbors to a transgender individual with some imagined radical-left conspiracy?

Where is all the breathless speculation? It’s not there, because the shooters don’t fit the right’s favorite homophobic and transphobic talking points.

Related: No one likes a hothead and a jerk, especially one who is the director of the FBI

Compare this silence with the frenzy that followed the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. The second the far right learned that Kirk’s shooter had a trans roommate, someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the crime, the smear campaign went into overdrive.

Consider how the New York Post plastered “trans roommate” across its coverage as though being transgender was itself evidence of guilt. Patel sent out scores of accusations and misinformation. Online trolls spread false claims about “trans messages” written on bullet casings, which was not true.

In fact, that roommate is likely to be the government’s key witness against the shooter. But the damage was done. The LGBTQ+ community was once again dragged through the mud, vilified as if every queer person in America had pulled the trigger.

So, now we have the North Carolina shooter, who left behind a trail of anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracies. The Michigan shooter, who walked into a house of worship with MAGA ties and rage against the Mormon Church.

But because they are straight white MAGA men, the coverage disappears after one day. The far right doesn’t want to talk about it. No frantic digging into their roommates’ social media. No attempts to smear their families. No tweets from Bondi about the evils of being trans. The hypocrisy is ridiculous.

Before Kirk was murdered, one of the last questions he answered from the stage was about transgender mass shooters. “Too many,” he responded, when asked how many there had been in the past decade. But the opposite holds true. That same disinformation machine roared into action after his murder, not to deal with the actual shooter but to turn the spotlight on an innocent trans roommate.

Related: We must not posthumously sanitize Charlie Kirk's hateful life

But after last weekend’s shootings, the spotlight went dim. Because if we look too closely at these latest shooters, we’d have to face the fact that the very movement that spends an inordinate amount of time demonizing LGBTQ+ Americans is also the one that is all about guns, machoness and hate.

It’s redundant and jaded, but America has really become a shooting gallery, and it bears repeating every time we have these mass shootings. Honestly and sadly, you can’t keep track anymore, whether it's schools, concerts, churches, or lakeside bars.

While the bullets are dangerous, so are the lies that can be associated with them when it fits the narrative of the far right. The lie that queer people are somehow driving this violence. The lie that trans Americans are waiting on every rooftop. The lie that MAGA violence is a fantasy concocted by the “radical left.”

Mass shootings have no place in this country. None. Zero. But neither does scapegoating marginalized communities just to score political points. Every time Patel or Bondi or right-wing media launch another baseless smear, they put a target on LGBTQ+ Americans.

They normalize hate. And by doing so they put queer people at great risk. They also, cruelly, make the next shooting more likely.

And presiding over it all is Trump, who glorifies violence with his ICE raids and military invasions of cities. He who revels in hate speech even at a memorial service and who wraps his arms around the gun lobby while demonizing marginalized communities that his base so eagerly vilifies.

Related: What Karoline Leavitt calls Trump’s 'authenticity' is abhorrent to the rest of the world

He won’t stop, mainly because he doesn’t want to, and also because he doesn’t know how. If Trump thinks you think he’s wrong, he just digs in more. That’s why his words are like lighter fluid, and his followers are the coals who soak in it..

Where is the outrage after last weekend? Why aren’t these shooters’ roommates being stalked by reporters? Why isn’t every MAGA Facebook post blazing with trans hate? Why does the fury only spin out of control when there’s a queer person in the vicinity?

Because it’s always about hate and hypocrisy.

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