No! The Buffalo Shooter Did Not Love Rachel Maddow

Published May 17th, 2022 - 05:46 GMT
Rachel Maddow buffalo
The Buffalo shooting had polarized Americans on social media. (Albawaba)

As the public in the United States continues to process the hate crime that was committed by an 18-year old white supremacist in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 black people and injuring 3 others, details about the shooter, now in custody, have ignited social media conversations, including a discussion involving MSNBC presenter Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow's name was mistakenly linked to the Buffalo shooting after an article went viral saying that "a shooter" had expressed his love for the liberal TV figure whom he watched for many years.

However, many social media users failed to realize that the article was talking about the shooter who had opened fire at a Republican baseball practice in 2017, and not Payton Gendron, who killed several people in Buffalo last Saturday.

Sharing the news report by conservative online commentators this week was initially meant to respond to liberal accusations targeted at right-wing TV presenters, including Fox News' Tucker Carlson, of feeding the anti-black and anti-immigration hate speech that fueled that latest attack in Buffalo, particularly the replacement theory that has been getting popular in white communities in several countries.

Users who wished to defend Tucker Carlson and other conservative media commentators re-shared the story of left-wing James Hodgkinson, who had injured 6 people as he opened fire in a GOP baseball practice, including the Republican representative Steve Scalise, who recovered from his wounds later on.