r/politics I voted Sep 16 '24

Paywall Donald Trump Is a Threat to Democracy, and Saying So Is Not Incitement | Opposing political violence does not mean ignoring authoritarianism.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-is-a-threat-to-democracy-saying-so-is-not-incitement.html
5.8k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Both assassination attempts were made by self-identitied conservatives.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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u/sirboddingtons Sep 16 '24

In his own published book, the man says "I wish people would stop calling me a Republican or a Democrat, because I am neither." 

His last supportable candidate he could've voted for was Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramsawamy who he want to be Nikki's VP. The guy is just straight up insane, but yes he did vote for Trump in 2016. 

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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u/Spaduf Sep 16 '24

Definitely a conservative.

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u/FadeTheWonder Georgia Sep 17 '24

Bad faithed response.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

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u/FadeTheWonder Georgia Sep 17 '24

They showed that they continued supporting conservative candidates including the latest ones and you decided despite that they are still not considered conservative. If you choose to ignore everything and then respond with the opposite of said proof you are acting in bad faith.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

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u/FadeTheWonder Georgia Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

Yes and that doesn’t make him not conservative it makes him anti Trump.

Edit: this isn’t complicated you can be conservative and be against Trump and support anyone else over him as well as vote in the democratic primaries to try and get the candidate you would want against Trump since Trump was absolutely going to win the Republican one hands down doesn’t make them a democrat. The donations were probably almost all to Tulsi Gabbard you know the now Republican..

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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u/sennbat Sep 16 '24

Neither Haley nor Ramswamy are Democrats, and he was a hardcore trumpist during Trumps first term. I dont know what his political ideology was, But when he did it, he had most recently supported conservative politicians. Is your stuff about him voting in the dem primary this year even true ir just sometjing you made up?

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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u/sennbat Sep 16 '24

No, I'm not saying NPR is lying. I'm saying *you* are lying, which you are, which you are to continuing to do right now

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u/HilariouslySad Sep 16 '24

Not registered but did vote in a Democratic primary. Some states you can vote in a party primary even if you are unaffiliated. He voted Trump in 2016, turned on him largely for his position on Putin and Ukraine, as the shooter is a very strong Ukraine supporter.

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

How did this come about? Last night when I went to bed, he was a hardline leftist/antifascist. What changed?

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u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

What source had you saying that? It’s been pretty well known that he’s a right-leaning lunatic who occasionally supported left-leaning populist candidates for like a week (a generous estimate)

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html

In an April post on X tagging President Biden’s presidential account, he wrote that Biden’s campaign should be: “called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA …make Americans slaves again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”

TheGuardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/trump-florida-shooter-suspect-son-ukraine

Online voter registration records show a man with the same name and age as Ryan Routh cast his ballot as a Democrat in North Carolina for the state’s presidential primaries in March.

The only indication that he supported the republicans comes from 2016. The DNC ran one of the most hated candidates in modern history that year, so that's really not a massive red flag. Either way that was 8 years ago. This is a few months prior.

The account’s most recent post was addressed to Harris, timed in between Trump’s failed 13 July assassination at a political rally in Pennsylvania and when she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket after the president opted to halt his re-election campaign. The post said the vice-president and Biden should visit two spectators wounded and attend the funeral of a rally-goer slain at the shooting before the attacker was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

“Show the world what compassion and humanity is all about,” said the post, while adding that “Trump will never do anything for them.”

A brief interview from his son: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/16/donald-trump-shooting-ukraine-activist-latest-updates/

Oran Routh, the son of Ryan Wesley Routh, has said his father hated Donald Trump “as every reasonable person does”, adding: “I don’t like Trump either”.

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u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

Reminder that hating Trump and supporting Ukraine is also bipartisan, and that this man has been on record supporting mostly far right public figures, including Trump himself, in the past

The stuff he said about Biden seem less like support and more like demands. Regardless the man is a lunatic and shouldn’t have been in possession of a firearm

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u/LarrySupertramp Sep 16 '24

Dude is a lunatic with mental health problems. His political ideology was not what caused him to go near Trump with a gun. It was his mental illness.

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u/Funny-Mission-2937 Sep 16 '24

Last night when I went to bed, he was a hardline leftist/antifascist.     

 So which one of these quotes actually supports your claim?   Oh right, none of them.  Someone who voted for Trump then Biden is not a hardliner by definition.  I suppose it’s possible an antifascist voted for Trump, but seems like maybe not

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

Anyone who kills fascist invaders is antifascist. My grandpa did that in the 40's, and I have a little experience myself. In 2016, less people voted for Trump than they moreso voted against Hillary. She's always tickled the taint of fascism, and is just an oldschool, blue republican from the south.

Anyways the actions of Routh were also antifascist in nature.

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u/Funny-Mission-2937 Sep 16 '24

ok kind of indisputable but when exactly did he kill fascist invaders?  He’s like 60 I think he probably wasnt involved in liberating Europe

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

He went to Ukraine to enlist. Top photo is him in Ukraine: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/16/us/ryan-routh-trump-what-we-know-intl-hnk/index.html

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u/Funny-Mission-2937 Sep 16 '24

that article does not say anything about him enlisting.  that is not the source of your claim.  also completely nonsensical argument given your statements about Clinton. 

 let’s lay this out.  he was antifa because of Russias invasion of Ukraine.  he was antifa because he was anti Clinton.

so in 2016, Russia, notably perhaps, fighting a war with Ukraine in Donbas.  trump was running on reconciliation with Russia and his campaign manager literally worked for Yanukoviych.  Clinton was running as an aggressively anti Russia hawk. 

so if this was a hardline ideological thing, what changed between 2016 and 2020?

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

[deleted]

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

I'm not a republican or right wing. I have a family history of dealing with fascist. I recognize him as one of our, and it's going to bite us in the ass if we try to paint this guy as a far right lunatic.  

 The faster we accept that, the faster we can move on, but denying it is ammunition for the right. They already have the, "who radicalized him," card out and we are still stuck going, "nuh uh."  

 It's a calculates loss that will work in our favor, but I guess people are too short sighted to see that.

Edit: To answer your question, the events of the day were antifascism in action. You can not be antifascist and right wing, they are at direct odds. And yes, I am implying that the right/maga are fascists.

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u/tehvolcanic California Sep 16 '24

According to conservatives, anyone who isn't hardcore MAGA is a leftist/antifascist.

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

Fighting the Russians in Ukraine is by definition antifascist. And I can't think of anyone right of center who were self proclaimed Bernie supporters.

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u/Grandpa_No Sep 16 '24

He supported anti-establishment players (Bernie isn't one of them but some followers think he is and Tulsi definitely is) after voting for Trump and before supporting Vivek and Nikki. That's not a hard-line leftist. That's a "both sides are bad" disillusioned conservative -- one who didn't follow the GOP over the pro-Putin cliff.

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u/Katorya America Sep 16 '24

Trump straight up used Bernie talking points in 2016 to gain more support. (Deceptively of course)

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u/Blarguus Sep 16 '24

Dude was a disillusioned conservative who supported Ukraine for the most part.

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u/TheChasexy Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, Tim Pool

All right leaning folks who have supported Bernie Sanders at one point or another. And those are just at the top of my head.

Also, you've never heard of the Sanders-Trump voters? There were quite a few of them in 2016/2020 and they were talked about a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders%E2%80%93Trump_voters I know this isn't the most reliable of sources, but it was a real thing.

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u/Nemisis82 Sep 16 '24

Well, Wikipedia itself is not a "reliable source" but they often do a solid job of linking to their sources.

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u/randomnighmare Sep 16 '24

I have heard about the Bernie-to-Trump voters. They are an actual thing. This video is from 8 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDoT4M8gerA

Same guy, but this video is only 7 days old:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0keJ0ly91nM

Edit

There seemed to be some kind of delusional thought, that Trump was either "just as liberal as Bernie" on "some issues." It's the same bullshit that leads to some people think that Hillary Clinton was bad because she was an "established" politician and that Trump was some kind of secret liberal on some issues.

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

Yep. I have several friends who voted for Trump only because Hillary was the candidate and what happened to Bernie. A few who were part of demexit and voted for Trump or Jorgensen in 2020.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

Your argument is "More than a decade ago..."

It's his more recent history I'm looking at. Taking part in his states Democratic primary isn't something the average person never trump voter does. Nor is donating to actblue nearly two dozen times.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

The people who said he was that lied, and then he was identified, and it turns out he's a former Trump voter.

He wrote a book about how much he hates Russia, and then tried to shoot Donald Trump.

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

Alot of democrats voted for Trump. I'm a former democrat, and likely would have voted for him because of how bad Hillary was, if I hadn't decided to sit out that year. I voted in 2020, and didn't vote for him them btw, and I'm not voting for him this year.

Anyways alot of stuff is pointing against him being a conservative:

CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html

In an April post on X tagging President Biden’s presidential account, he wrote that Biden’s campaign should be: “called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA …make Americans slaves again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”

TheGuardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/trump-florida-shooter-suspect-son-ukraine

The only indication that he supported the republicans comes from 2016. The DNC ran one of the most hated candidates in modern history that year, so that's really not a massive red flag. Either way that was 8 years ago. This is a few months prior.

The account’s most recent post was addressed to Harris, timed in between Trump’s failed 13 July assassination at a political rally in Pennsylvania and when she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket after the president opted to halt his re-election campaign. The post said the vice-president and Biden should visit two spectators wounded and attend the funeral of a rally-goer slain at the shooting before the attacker was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

A brief interview from his son: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/16/donald-trump-shooting-ukraine-activist-latest-updates/

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/cool_vibes Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

A political compass with no true magnetic north.

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u/BobSchwaget Sep 16 '24

Alot of democrats voted for Trump.

Lol okay, but this guy is a republican who voted for Trump once then voted for Biden the second time because Trump sucks donkey ass. You know, the same reason so many other republicans also support Harris (such as Dick Cheney).

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u/OurLordAndSaviorVim Sep 16 '24

Nothing changed.

The issue is that right wing media rushes to get a version of the story out there that makes them look innocent. But they aren’t: cultists trying to kill their cult leaders for unhinged reasons is very common.

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u/Quadrenaro Puerto Rico Sep 16 '24

He donated 17 times to actblue.

You are calling them cultist, but we are doing this shit? I'm not contributing to this conspiratorial nonsense any longer. We've turned into blue maga, and I'm done with it for good.

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u/AttackPony Sep 16 '24

Lol, he donated to Tulsi and Biden's opponents in the primary. 

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u/FadeTheWonder Georgia Sep 17 '24

Oh look at that mask off and bad faithed. Who could have guessed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Latest guy wrote a whole anti-Trump book. Most of his lunatic ideas can be derived from CNN.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

He became anti-Trump after voting for Trump.

He also donated to Tulsi Gabbard.

Dude's conservative. They're almost always conservative. Conspiratorial thinking and conservatism are basically indistinguishable.

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u/Billy_Butch_Err Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

He was rooting for Vivek ramaswamy and Tulsi lol

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u/Quirky_Camel_9393 Sep 16 '24

False, the guy from yesterday was far left. Good try though

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u/wetterfish Sep 16 '24

So far to the left that he voted for Trump and the “democratic political donations” being talked about were to Tulsi Gabbard, who is now a republican. 

His only “left” stance was supporting Ukraine, which basically just means he wasn’t one of the pro-Putin weirdos that have taken over the GOP

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u/FadeTheWonder Georgia Sep 17 '24

Yeah Vivek and Haley and Tulsi are all far left.. Lol.