Biden now blamed for Nashville shooting as conservatives claim president’s ‘white supremacy’ rhetoric radicalized shooter

Conservatives are blaming President Joe Biden for the March 2023 school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, after right-wing vlogger Steven Crowder published a portion of the perpetrator’s alleged manifesto.

The shooting, carried out by a transgender man who had previously attended the school, resulted in the death of three children and three adults.

In the wake of the tragedy, police declined to immediately release a manifesto written by the shooter while an investigation was ongoing. The decision was seen by conservatives as proof that the shooter’s transgender identity had been to blame for the tragedy and that a coverup was underway to hide that fact.

But following the release of three pages from the alleged manifesto by Crowder, conservatives are changing their tune given that no mention of gender identity is made. Instead, the shooter railed against white privilege and referred to white children as “crackers,” leading conservatives to shift the goalposts, instead blaming liberal politics and more notably President Joe Biden.

Users on X are citing a compilation of remarks from Biden in which he correctly labeled white supremacist violence as the most common form of domestic terrorism. However, according to conservatives, concerns over such violence is nothing more than a “false threat.”

“With Biden constantly using the false threat of white supremacy to divide and scare people, it was just a matter of time before someone became radicalized and took matters into their own hands,” one user wrote.

Others accused the Biden administration of covering up the shooting and gaslighting Americans. Some even blamed former President Barack Obama for ongoing racial tensions while repeating the conspiracy theory that he is secretly running the Biden White House under a third term.

The talking point regarding Biden’s alleged culpability quickly caught on. Chaya Raichik, who runs the Libs of TikTok account, similarly claimed without evidence that the shooter may have been radicalized by Biden.

“Holy sh*t! It’s possible Biden radicalized the trans Nashville shooter to hate white people with all his rhetoric around ‘white supremacy.,’” she wrote. “This would make Biden a stochastic terrorist according to the Left’s rules. Wow.”

Some even went as far as to directly blame Biden for the shooter’s six victims.

“Biden killed those kids in Nashville #audreyhale,” one user wrote.

Of course, no conspiracy theory is complete without an ever more ridiculous conspiracy theory to top it. Some users are even suggesting that Biden released the manifesto himself to distract the public from family controversies.

There’s no evidence at this time, based on the alleged manifesto pages, that indicate the shooter was in any way convinced to carry out their attack after hearing Biden condemn white supremacy.

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*First Published: Nov 6, 2023, 1:10 pm CST

Mikael Thalen

Mikael Thalen is a tech and security reporter covering social media, data breaches, hackers, and more.