# The Las Vegas - Tesla truck suicide bomber **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 5, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601 "2025-01-05T23:05:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/1 "2025-01-05T23:05:38Z")
Don’t know what board to put this on, but it’s a political manifesto that I’m linking, so stuck it on the P&E board. Mods, please move if needed. I just read this Livelsberger guy’s manifesto, and it’s very disturbing. Obviously he’s insane. But he had a specific worldview that he posted in some notes, and he used it to try to explain himself. One thing he wanted was for militias to take over DC, and purge the Dems, with violence if necessary. I’d say he lived in a violent right-wing fantasy world. I’m curious what exactly he was reading online, or what he was exposed to, that drove this thinking. > **[PO-003a-01-03-25-Livelsbergers-Letters.pdf](https://nevadacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/PO-003a-01-03-25-Livelsbergers-Letters.pdf)** ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/2 "2025-01-05T23:36:36Z")
One interesting (to me anyway) point: he doesn’t drag God into it. Whatever the sources of his right-wing hypermasculine utopia may be, they don’t appear to include Christian Dominionists. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/3 "2025-01-06T00:08:21Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > I’m curious what exactly he was reading online, or what he was exposed to, that drove this thinking. I mean except for the open calls for insurrection, this really isn’t out of line with the rhetoric expressed by Fox News ‘personalities’ like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, or Jesse Watters, and is pretty much a summation of the list of Newt Gingrich-led conservative grievance which has led the entire GOP down a proto-fascist path and headfirst into the MAGA-verse. The particular irony of: > _We are crumbling because of a lack of self respect, morales, and respect for others. Greed and gluttony has consumed us. The top 1% decided long ago they weren’t going to bring everyone else with them._ followed by: > _Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!_ is certainly an apex of irony. But as radical as this ‘manifesto’ reads, the sentiments are shared by a thundering herd of Trump supporters and far-right advocates. > [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > One interesting (to me anyway) point: he doesn’t drag God into it. Whatever the sources of his right-wing hypermasculine utopia may be, they don’t appear to include Christian Dominionists. There are three distinct groups of radicalized far-right Trump supporters; Christian Nationalists who see Trump as their Antichrist, the oligarchic boosters (a combination of energy billionaires, investment bankers, tech bros, and hucksters) who give some lip service to the Christian morales but really just see Trump as someone who is going to let them make more money unfettered by regulation and oversight, and the disaffected and angry masses (wounded veterans, conspiranoists, victims of the 2007/8 mortgage crisis justifiably angry over bailouts that didn’t help them, business owners impacted by the pandemic, and just a herd of people who don’t have any material grievance but whose anxieties have been stoked by years of right wing propaganda). This individual clearly falls into the latter group, perhaps exacerbated by his reported PTSD and traumatic brain injuries on top of a divorce, guilt, and whatever else was going on with him. But he’s clearly not alone, and that letter is not a bunch of unhinged statements that he just pulled out of the aether; it is basically the recipe for cooking an authoritarian stew, and there are plenty of people who will read this with nodding agreement. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/4 "2025-01-06T02:05:10Z")
Yeah. 50M Americans agree w the manifesto even if they’re not quite ready to commit suicide over it. Probably 40M of those _are_ ready to commit murder over it as long as they’re in a group while doing so. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/5 "2025-01-06T02:14:03Z")
With the Republicans in control of all the branches of government and Trump a few weeks away from being sworn in, why didn’t this guy just wait for things to get better? If he believes Trump is going to fix everything then there is no point in blowing himself up. After all, Trump isn’t actually going to do anything to fix things. He’s just going to declare them to be fixed and insult anyone who says otherwise. It’s almost as if this guy’s actions suggest that he doesn’t believe in this kind of magic and wouldn’t have found it helpful in dealing with the very real issue of TBI. Perhaps there was an underlying cynicism buried under some cognitive dissonance. We already know what Trump thinks of soldiers and sailors who sacrifice for their country. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/6 "2025-01-06T02:48:59Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > With the Republicans in control of all the branches of government and Trump a few weeks away from being sworn in, why didn’t this guy just wait for things to get better? If he believes Trump is going to fix everything then there is no point in blowing himself up. Mental illness and/or neurological impairment does not lend itself to rational contemplation. > [@DWMarch](#): > > Perhaps there was an underlying cynicism buried under some cognitive dissonance. We already know what Trump thinks of soldiers and sailors who sacrifice for their country. I don’t know about “underlying cynicism” but there is certainly a cognitive dissonance regarding Trump, who has never sacrificed anything and has openly called servicepeople “suckers” and blown off the families of veterans, and yet enjoys broad popularity with veterans and active servicepeople, while Biden gets the blame for the deaths in the Afghanistan pullout (even though that was a ‘deal’ negotiated under Trump’s first administration) and has displayed empathy and compassion toward veteran families and he lost a son to a likely-combat related illness. I think the real answer is that the United States has been primed for fascism by thirty-five years of right-wing propaganda and conspiranoia, and it has been sufficiently worked into the popular consciousness that it is now the default of suicidal manifestos and the general zeitgeist of cultural anxiety. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/7 "2025-01-06T03:13:47Z")
Too bad about these army nut bars who fantasize about turning it all on the civilian population. Not at all a new thing. I just hope, this time, they’re not the visible sprouts of an active culture in the military just waiting for the right time. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/8 "2025-01-06T03:48:19Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > We are crumbling because of a lack of self respect, morales, and respect for others. Lack of Morales? I thought the right wingnuts were against immigration from south of the border. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/9 "2025-01-06T17:46:09Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > With the Republicans in control of all the branches of government and Trump a few weeks away from being sworn in, why didn’t this guy just wait for things to get better? I From the horses mouth: > Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took. So his own personal demons drove him to suicide, but he decided to make his death a spectacle to garner attention for his political causes. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/10 "2025-01-06T19:20:16Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > > I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took. This guy was just a bundle of contradictions. He killed himself partly out of guilt for all the lives he took, but also thinks the US needs to be Big&Strong, to inspire Fear in all who would oppose them. Dude, how exactly do you think the US would go about doing that? Hint: It involves blowing things up and killing people. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/11 "2025-01-07T01:13:44Z")
This guy was just going for a twofer. His life was miserable and wanted to end it. Not wanting to look like a loser, he dressed it up as a political statement. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-las-vegas-tesla-truck-suicide-bomber/1012601/12 "2025-01-07T01:42:07Z")
To the degree his life was wrecked by Uncle Sam, he wanted to make the point that we ought to try something different. But he was so wrecked that the “something” he came up was an incoherent mess with one half of it supplied by Faux, Jones, et al.