Of course he was mentally ill. But that is the WHOLE POINT. The rise of this kind of dangerous rhetoric and extremism on the right wing is feeding the fantasies of people like Bedell, and inciting them to violence.

It doesn’t excuse the right wing to say the guy was crazy. Sure, he was crazy. But the craziness was fed by the extremism that is everywhere in the modern right wing.

Encouraging and allowing this craziness has consequences — one of them is named John Patrick Bedell.