Critics on Twitter went off on Rolling Stone over a commentary piece claiming the Buffalo shooting suspect is a “mainstream Republican.”
On Sunday, the outlet published a piece titled, “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.”
Talia Lavin argued in the piece, “There’s no such thing as a lone wolf — an appellation often given, in error, to terrorists who act alone, particularly those of the white supremacist variety.”
She added, “There are only those people who, fed a steady diet of violent propaganda and stochastic terror, take annihilatory rhetoric to its logical conclusion.”
Lavin explained the suspected shooter “was an adherent of what is called Great Replacement Theory, the idea that white people, in the United States and white-majority countries around the world, are being systematically, deliberately outbred and ‘replaced’ by immigrants and ethnic minorities, in a deliberate attempt to rid the world of whiteness.”
Concluding the piece, Lavin wrote, “There has never been a lone wolf when it comes to racist terror in the United States; it suffuses every aspect of our politics and policy, and in latter years the mass howl of fear at change comes from a jaw that drips with blood.”
She continued, “As long as we fail to recognize the wellspring of racial animus that animates the right wing in this country, the corpses will continue to accrue.”
Users on Twitter did not hold back on the criticism of the piece.
One wrote, “Pretty amazing that many on the Left have dropped any pretense at being honest and are just blatant liars.”
Clinical Psychologist Jordan Peterson added, “A mainstream Republican’ continues its utter degeneration into the appalling.”
Check out more reactions below:
According to NPR, a white gunman allegedly carried out a racist attack in Buffalo, New York, citing authorities.
The gunman killed 10 people and injured another three.
The outlet noted almost all of the victims were Black.