After my second replay, I have decided that I really like Copeland as a flawed yet decent character.
(EDIT: I put them into paragraphs for easier reading, kinda)
For Copeland, I think some things I can personally feel bad for him or truly understand him are the fact he had a son that possibly clearly died, and he still keeps a letter by his son in his camp area. He's had that letter for years, so his son clearly meant the world to him and it must be insanely tough losing a child or at least not knowing where they are or what happened to them. Not only that, but his paranoia and certain ways of living were installed into him way before the outbreak happened. His father was a maniac and was obsessed with shelters and not trusting people and believing the world was out to get them, plus Copeland was part of the U.S marines too, which can clearly harden a person to some degree.
All of this made Copeland into a paranoiad maniac and was broadcasting his radio weeks before the outbreak happened town to town while running away from those trying to stop him. He claimed he knew things, and everyone thought he was crazy but he wasn't... Well, he is, but he wasn't entirely wrong or crazy to the point everything he said was just lies or theories. Cloverdale did infact use research tied to Sarah's work and the virus was made from that to a degree. NERO wasn't a clean rescue organization. One of his broadcasts was him stating that there were a few dead people and more wounded from the choppers after people begged for mercy. Deacon calls it Copeland's rants BS, but Copeland was right about some or most of the things he saw and knew and still got mocked and made fun of, simply because he's Copeland and is crazy in other ways. But nobdy ever really took him seriously.
I also felt a bit bad for Copeland at the start, because the reason he took Deacon's bike was out of pure desperation. His camp got attacked by the Rippers and his people were hurt and starving and they were doing things out of desperate measures, not for fun or just because they could. People even left Copeland's camp and stole gear to become marauders and that can clearly make Copeland and his people desperate and in all honesty, crazy. Copeland's camp stood for everything that the marauders/rippers didn't, and thats why they got hit so much by outside groups.
He tried to run his camp as best and as normal as he could, minus his paranoid rants over his radio show, he was kind of a good leader to his people and really cared about them as people, especially the kids and young adults. He is upfront and straight to the point, emotional about his people, clearly damaged and different due to his upbringing and his past in the U.S marines and also constantly on edge because of everything that had recently happened to his camp and his people. He was proved right by the government but still mocked and seen as a joke by people listening to his show and I believe overall he is quite misunderstood.
I liked him way more than Tucker anyway, by an insanely long shot and to me he was on par with Iron Mike.