Views on politics[edit]
Records show that Loughner was registered as an
Independent and voted in 2006 and 2008, but not in 2010.
[38][39]
Loughner's high-school friend Zach Osler said, "He did not watch TV; he disliked the news; he didn't listen to political radio; he didn't take sides; he wasn't on the
Left; he wasn't on the
Right."
[18] A former classmate, Caitie Parker, who attended high school and college with Loughner, described his political views prior to 2007, prior to his personality transformation, as "left wing, quite liberal,"
[40] "radical."
[41] The tone of Loughner's online writings and videos from immediately before the attack were described by
The Guardianas "almost exclusively conservative and anti-government, with echoes of the populist campaigning of the Tea Party movement".
[42]
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said that Loughner's political positions were a "hallmark of the far right and the militia movement."
[43] Jesse Walker of
Reason expressed deep scepticism at the connections drawn by Potok.
[44] In the aftermath of the shooting, the
Anti-Defamation League reviewed messages by Loughner, and concluded that there was a "disjointed theme that runs through Loughner's writings", which was a "distrust for and dislike of the government." It "manifested itself in various ways" – for instance, in the belief that the government used
the control of language and grammar to
brainwash people, the notion that the government was creating "infinite currency" without the backing of gold and silver, or the assertion that
NASA was faking spaceflights.
Dislike for Gabrielle Giffords[edit]
According to a former friend, Bryce Tierney, Loughner had expressed a longstanding dislike for
Gabrielle Giffords. Tierney recalled that Loughner had often said that women should not hold positions of power.
[45][46] He repeatedly derided Giffords as a "fake". This belief intensified after he attended her August 25, 2007 event when she did not, in his view, sufficiently answer his question: "What is government if words have no meaning?"
[20] Loughner kept Giffords'
form letter, which thanked him for attending the 2007 event, in the same box as an envelope which was scrawled with phrases like "die bitch" and "assassination plans have been made".
[47] Zane Gutierrez, a friend, later told
The New York Times that Loughner's anger would also "well up at the sight of
President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government."
[46]
Conspiracy theories[edit]
His friend Zach Osler noted that
conspiracy theories had a profound effect on Loughner.
[16][48] He was a member of the
message board Above Top Secret, which discusses conspiracy theories; members of the site did not respond warmly to posts believed to be from his account.
[49][50][51] Loughner espoused
conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks,
[46] the
New World Order, and believed in a
2012 apocalypse, among other controversial viewpoints. Reports appearing after the shooting noted similarities between the statements made by Loughner and those publicized by the
far-right conspiracy theorist David Wynn Miller.
[52] The Anti-Defamation League's report also confirmed Loughner's longstanding interest in conspiracy theories.
[53]
Views on religion[edit]
Journalists had speculated that Loughner was
anti-Semitic due to his attack on Rep. Giffords, who is Jewish, but the
Anti-Defamation League's analysis of the messages by Loughner found that he had a more generalized dislike of religion, and of government. A police report noted that he had previously been caught making graffiti associated with Christian anti-abortion groups.
[54]
Loughner has been described as an
atheist by those who knew him.
[55][56] Loughner declined to state his religion in his Army application. In his "Final Thoughts" video, Loughner stated, "No, I don't trust in God!", in reference to the
official motto of the
United Statesprinted on US coins and US paper currency, "
In God We Trust". He expressed a dislike for all religions, and he was particularly critical of Christians.
[53][57][58]