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Nobody in national politics is willing to call him a terrorist. Not brown, black, or middle eastern.

I'm not in national politics, but I have no sympathy for him because of his whiteness. I have a son, daughter-in-law, and (especially) 2 grandchildren in Austin, so that may affect my lack of sympathy.

Question is whether this guns-and-chemicals kids' gang called RIOT that he was allegedly active in might be a terror group. I don't know. Timothy McVeigh comes to mind.

Oops, I called it a gang, which suggests the kids were nonwhite. I should have said club, so you would know most if not all of them were white.

That's sort of tongue in cheek, but there is a real sense in which club-vs-gang is color-coded, and police responses to the two terms differ. Even though the activities may be identical.

Then again, it might be under this definition of domestic terrorism:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.


Too many definitions to fuss over. The dude was crazy or evil or both.

Right now is rating this "Unproven" -- which I think basically means they don't have enough info to confirm or deny.

I tend to require and believe a political motivation or goal is necessary to reach the classification of "terrorism". McVeigh would fit that bill for "domestic terrorism", as he had a grudge against the government. I think a "gang" tends to have some aspect of illegal activity to one degree or another, at least in the common usage of the term. A white kid in a "club" wouldn't meet the definition of a gang unless the club itself had some nefarious activity as part of its regular activities.

I do not know about public/press sympathies in this Austin case,

but when it really counts, whites receive more sympathetic treatment than blacks or hispanics:

In police altercations:

In the Criminal Justice System:

He was white, and he was sympathetic to conservative political causes, and he was male. He gets a pass from the right wing media, and most of the right wing, on being labelled the same way that anyone of another political perspective or race would have been. Period.