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These recent mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton appear very similar on the surface level. Both assassins were young, white males acting alone. Each one left political messages on social media. Crusius posted his manifesto to 8chan, and we have since learned about Betts' political posts on Twitter. Neither one had a history of violent crime. In executing their attacks, both killers chose popular shopping malls as a target. Both used assault rifles and protective gear, displaying a level of proficiency and tactics intended to inflict maximum casualties in a short period of time. If not for unusually rapid and brave police responses, these two might have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians all by themselves. If we simply watched a film of both horrific events, we might think these two assassins belonged to the same rebel terrorist group, especially given how close they were in time. And yet Crusius hates Democrats, and Betts was a Democrat who liked Elizabeth Warren. Politically, they seem to be on opposite sides of the culture war. Except that when you look a layer deeper, the ideological similarity becomes evident. Both Crusius and Betts are anti-corporation collectivists. Crusius explicitly rails against corporations in his manifesto, and he spoke favorably of universal health care and UBI. Also, he agrees with the Christchurch shooter, who calls himself an ecofascist. Betts, of course, was a self-described socialist on the extreme Left. In addition to tweeting support for Warren, he also spoke out against the industrial revolution. So it seems that, like Crusius, he too was driven by concern for the environment. Admittedly, the fact that Betts killed his sister and apparently left no explanation for his rampage, that makes his motive less straightforward. Also, since he's dead, we might never figure it out exactly. But the actions speak for themselves, and the Twitter posts give us a sense of his beliefs beforehand. Based on these two extreme examples, it looks like the militant nationalists and militant socialists are meeting somewhere in the neighborhood of militant environmentalism.