Ryan Wesley Routh, aged 58, who is accused of attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump, was arrested on Sunday. It has been reported that he displayed a Harris-Biden bumper sticker on a truck parked outside his residence in Hawaii.
The New York Post reported:
“The alleged gunman who targeted former President Trump had a Biden-Harris bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck at his home in Kaaawa, Hawaii. Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, frequently posted about politics online and has exclusively donated to Democratic candidates and causes since 2019.”
The assassination attempt on Trump marked the second incident within a span of just over two months. In the initial attempt, the assailant, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had an almost nonexistent presence on social media; conversely, the current perpetrator, Routh, identified as a leftist who harbored animosity towards Trump and expressed support for Kamala Harris.
Routh was also fixated on the conflict in Ukraine, aligning himself with the Ukrainian cause, and had been interviewed by the New York Times regarding his initiatives to enlist volunteers to travel to Ukraine to combat Russian forces.
Politicians from various political affiliations denounced the assassination attempt; however, media outlets continued to attribute blame to Trump rather than to Democrats, suggesting that his supposedly incendiary rhetoric was a catalyst for political violence. Not a single media organization scrutinized its own discourse or that of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party in relation to Trump.
