The posting history of Max Azzarello, the man who set himself on fire outside the New York courthouse where Trump is being tried, reveals that he was a self-described “anarcho-communist.” The revelation provides a striking parallel with the case of Aaron Bushnell, who also set himself on fire, in protest at Israel’s war in Gaza. Bushnell described himself in near-identical terms.

Could there be links between the two men? And what role is internet forums like Reddit playing in the radicalization of these men and others like them?

In one post on Reddit posted a month ago, the user “Coup_Radley,” who has been verified as Azzarello by the twitter account Reddit Lies, said the following, under the heading “Anarchocommunist.”

“My politics include believing both U.S. parties have been taken over by financial criminals, and that the U.S. has been a full-blown kleptocracy ever since CIA Direct George H.W. Bush got the White House.”

He then appears to endorse real-world violence against the government by a united leftist movement.

“I’m a huge proponent of left unity, and believe that only the left has the power to build a united movement to enact meaningful change. I wish more leftists realized that shouting ACAB [“All cops are bast*rds”] and memeing about guillotines and molotovs is precisely what our criminal government would want them to do. In my eyes, the only thing ‘ACAB’ stands for is ‘All Cops Are Brainwashed.’

“I worship Mother Earth magazine to the high heavens.”

Mother Earth is an anarchist magazine founded by the notorious Emma Goldman in 1906.

The user Coup_Radley also posted Azzarello’s manifesto, “The True History of the World.”

An analysis of his cumulative voting patterns on Reddit revealed that “his ideology meshed very well with r/SandersForPresident, r/ChapoTrapHouse, and generally ‘leftist’ subreddits,” according to Twitter user Reddit Lies.

He also appears to have had another, older, account called MrSamsonite.

User Reddit Lies, who is responsible for the analysis of Azzarello’s Reddit posts, notes that the similarities between the Azzarello and the Bushnell cases are “incredible.”

Of the two men’s posting histories, Reddit Lies says:

“It’s almost copy-paste, though Aaron was far more immersed in leftist hate. So far Max hasn’t come across as nearly as snarky or angry.”

The role of Reddit in radicalising the two men is already under scrutiny on Twitter, and will no doubt come under even more as Azzarello’s posts are analysed in even greater detail and a clearer timeline, tied to events in his offline life, is established.

One user commented:

“oh wow, i was completely blindly projecting that he was probably a psycho redditor getting encouraged by other psycho redditors but that actually turned out to be right reddit mods should be sued.”

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