In today’s article about some men shooting up American businesses and officials blaming video games, I want to make a quick statement. Often you’ll find people who will say, “Don’t bring politics into my video games,” with the spelling of an average Twitter user. However, I want to counter this point with, video games have always been political. Between Princess Peach being kidnapped for political gains, the ESA regulating your games, and Grand Theft Auto IV having you shoot a lawyer for a policeman’s political gains. The ship has sailed on this one. So let’s look at who is pulling games into politics.

Yesterday, moments after we had already published a piece about the shootings over the weekend that ruined many lives. The United States President, Donald Trump, made his feelings heard on the matter at hand. Speaking in the wake of two separate shootings only several hours apart in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio the president said: “We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly videogames that are now commonplace,” he said, “It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”

Continuing with: “We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately. Cultural change is hard, but each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life. That’s what we have to do.” Following this with pointing the finger of blame squarely at the internet, “The perils of the internet and social media cannot be ignored, and they will not be ignored,” going on to claim that he’s directing government agencies and social media companies to, “develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.”

The President’s remarks also acknowledged the assumed manifesto by the El Paso shooter, Patrick Crusius. The President claimed this to be “Consumed by racist hate,” and called for all Americans to “Condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.” This conference came Monday morning following his previous Twitter comments of “Heartfelt thoughts and prayers,” and “God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.”

Though some have argued that this is the sullen and reserved version of the President’s large and bombastic personality. As well as previous public statements on the President’s nature around these mass shootings pointing towards his appearance in Home Alone 2. A movie where a child is very violent towards two men, with the previous installment featuring said child firing a toy gun into a man’s groin.

This also surrounds many claims of the President’s feelings towards those of color. Last month telling four women of color to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” In the past two weeks, he was caught up in another moment telling US Representative for Maryland’s 7th district Elijah Cummings, that his district is, “a disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess.”

The El Paso shooter who posted his manifesto claiming, “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” has been a vocal supporter of the President. To which Natalie Martinez, a researcher for Media Matters, tweeted, “According to Facebook’s ad archive, Trump has run around 2,200 FB ads since May 2018 mentioning the word ‘invasion.’ Scrolling through, all of them seem to be about immigration.” Implying that the President’s language is one of the motives for the El Paso shooting.

Since our report yesterday on House Minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and Texas’ Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick’s comments on video games being the cause of both attacks, more information has surfaced on the Dayton shooter. According to online fact-checker Snopes, the Twitter username @iamthespookster belonged to Connor Stephen Betts, the Dayton shooter. Hours before this Twitter account was suspended by Twitter itself, however, the user described themselves as “Anime fan / metalhead / leftist/ I’m going to hell and I’m not coming back.” He also showed support for 2020 Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.