I admit I breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, two sighs.
I am happy the apparent assassination attempt failed. Murder is wrong per se, and an assassination is doubly so. An assassination would be chaotic and divisive. Trump's assassination would become a point of grievance for a generation or more. It would make our fractured democracy even weaker.
I was happy, too, about who the assassin was not. Not a Democrat. Not employed by or associated with Democrats. Not a liberal. Not a progressive. Not a socialist. Not associated with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or AOC. Not "woke." Not a member of any liberal-adjacent groups. Not a college graduate. Not Black. Not Hispanic. Not dark-skinned. Not an immigrant or the child of immigrants. Not a gun-hater. Not angry about the death of George Floyd. Not a cop-hater. Not a woman. Not a feminist. Not angry about racial injustice. Not angry about abortion.
Instead, the two alleged assassins are people deep inside the Trump orbit of "real" Americans. Both are White, American-born, unmarried, working-class, male gun enthusiasts. That is the sweet spot for Trump support.
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| Thomas Crooks |
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| Ryan Routh |
Both alleged assassins had incoherent political beliefs. Thomas Crooks, 20, who shot the former president, was a registered Republican, but had once given a few dollars to a presumed Democratic cause. Crooks' home in Butler Pennsylvania, is Trump country but Crooks' parents may or may not have displayed Trump signs. Witnesses differ. The Florida gunman, 58-year old Ryan Routh had voted for Trump in 2016, then preferred Tulsi Gabbard, then Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy in the spring of 2024, but now disagreed with Trump on the Ukraine issue, and was registered as a Democrat at the time he was arrested.
If I saw this man at a political event, a Walmart parking lot, or anywhere near a pickup truck, I would profile him as a likely Trump enthusiast:
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| Routh |
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| People beside me in line for a Trump rally in New Hampshire |
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| People beside me at a Trump rally in Medford, Oregon |
The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric. It needs to cut this crap out. Somebody's going to get hurt by it."
Trump looked inside the mind of Routh and said that Routh "believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it."
Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out. . . .It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.
My relief is from thinking that the Democrats-are-to-blame case is not credible in the minds of whatever undecided persuadable voters still exist. Trump's extravagant smash-mouth talk is a reason not to vote for him. He's gotten too wacky, and he is at it again with these assertions.
And there is the simple matter of instant, gut-feeling typecasting. Neither Crooks nor Routh read at first glance like Democrats acting on encouragement from the likes of Biden, Harris, or Walz. They look like what their biography suggests they are: single White guys who like guns. They aren't archetype Democrats. They are Proud Boy types. Trump types, if anything. They are the lonely guys who make the news when they shoot up schools, churches, and supermarkets. Kooks.
8 comments:
Trump people are the dangerous ones but we have to not let them intimidate us into silence. The Jews in Hitler’s time taught us that didn’t they? Let’s face it, Trump people are mostly the low IQ people along with the rich who don’t want to share. Trump May come to realize he doesn’t have the control over his right wing followers and it will be the big oops someday. Paranoid personalities are the most dangerous in my experience and Trump fosters paranoia. In the mean time the polls are encouraging, but still scary in Pennsylvania.
Voter records show Ryan Routh registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.
Similar to how I felt when I was a hippie and the Sharon Tate murders happened in 1969. My first thought was that this was going to be bad for us hippies.
But it is certainly possible that all of the talk on the left about how the reëlection of Donald Trump would be “the end of democracy” could lead some different kind of nutcase to try to assassinate Trump.
It’s not like there’s any shortage of crazy people.
But the lies and overheated blather issued by J. Deviate Vance and his Orange dyed role model DonOld Trump's don't encourage bomb threats and death threats against the LEGAL Haitian Immigrants in Springfield Ohio ?
Routh reportedly railed frequently against Trump, including this year as a threat to democracy: "Democracy is on the ballot and we cannot lose" and "We cannot afford to fail", e.g. Routh to Iran, no less: "You are free to assassinate Trump".
Yet Routh is no consistent party follower in any direction. Trump's oft-characterized "cult of personality" features a wide variety of members and permutations, arguably to include some of his most implacable--and most unstable--critics.
I have no doubt that you can cite a legitimate source for your allegations ? Perhaps FAUX NOOZ, or Breitbart or Steve Bannon, oh wait, he's in prison. At any rate, cite your sources, from behind your cowardly Anonymity shield.
EC: I never said that. You said that.
There are crazies at both ends of the political spectrum, but the vast majority of politically motivated murders in the U.S. are committed by white-wing whackos.
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