Why would someone have to "desperately try to characterize" someone as something that they clearly are? To me, that language is clearly indicating that it is somehow difficult to do. At that time, it was fairly apparent that he was not MAGA, at least not in any remotely common sense of the word.

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defrost 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> At that time, it was fairly apparent that he was not MAGA

The criticism of the "MAGA gang" was _not_ about their actions at the time of the Kimmel broadcast, it was very much about their immediate behavior as soon as the shooting hit the news .. the time when nothing was known, the time when the FBI head was making statements about suspects that were untrue, the time when the US head of state was declaring war on the left .. you know, the time when nothing was known about the political allegiance of the shooter .. or the lack thereof.

I'm an outside observer, from here it's clear that the US has fallen deep into an Us v Them K-hole and that the current administration is all too happy to turn up the heat on the divisions that render the nation asunder .. the chaos makes the heist all the easier.

	▲	apparent 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I could imagine interpreting the statement that way if he had said either before or after that it turned out the shooter was not MAGA. But stating it on its own, the effect in my mind was pretty clear: to communicate that the shooter was MAGA, and that the MAGA gang was doing their best to deny it.