Will go off what seems to be the media consensus once one settles; I will not bet in this market to keep neutrality. To help calibrate, the previous Trump assassination attempt’s shooter would count as right wing.
Since this is decided based on media reporting, here’s how the media’s framing it. His past support of Trump features prominently. Some outright describe him as non-partisan. Others discuss his support for fringe Republicans without labelling him one way or the other.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/ryan-wesley-routh-trump-golf-shooting
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/16/us/ryan-routh-trump-what-we-know-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/16/trump-florida-assassination-attempt-suspect-ryan-routh
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3611zjjnd2o
In the interests of presenting a fair case, Newsweek reports his Democrat ties, but it also seems to contradict other reporting about his registration in 2012. (BBC for example says he voted in a 2012 Dem primary, but wasn’t registered as a Dem.)
https://www.newsweek.com/ryan-wesley-routh-republican-democrat-donald-trump-shooting-1954438
@OP This is very helpful, thank you.
Some of these were on my radar already, but some are new to me. I'm also watching:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/16/politics/ryan-routh-trump-suspect-invs/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/16/us/trump-shooting-news
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ryan-routh-trump-assassination-attempt-alleged-what-know-rcna171269
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-we-know-about-reported-suspect-behind-apparent-trump-assassination-attempt-2024-09-16/
https://apnews.com/article/trump-assassination-attempt-suspect-ukraine-f76ed09f256f6bd21727a10901d92af7
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-assassination-attempts-thomas-cooks-ryan-routh-1954613
@MaximLott I understand the tossup between "Idiosyncratic" and "Left Wing", but I'm hard pressed to figure out how you could torture the facts so far into supporting a "Right Wing" thesis. I suspect we're seeing a fair number of users who bet "no" on right-wing early yesterday taking profits and temporarily bumping up the odds.
@MaximLott I consider the previous shooter to be idiosyncratic. He was a registered Republican, donated to ActBlue, wore a libertarian t shirt, and apparently had a Gab account where he made some left-ish arguments.
@Bayesian how about when the person who did it wrote a book advocating for the assassination of Harris. In his book, Routh said Trump should be killed. And he ranted against Jan 6. He quote Democrat talking points. He tweeted to Biden and said Trump would make us slaves.
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1835552507881201689
@brianwang the very tweet you refer to contains the caption:
> Routh declares himself a political independent, neither Republican or Democrat, but clearly loathes Trump
None of this opposition to trump shows conclusively that Routh is left-wing. His support for overwhelmingly left-wing issues does support that hypothesis. On the other hand he has repeated that he is independent. I think if you asked "is he more left-wing or right-wing" or "what's the political affiliation he more usually agrees with", you'd have a strong case. But, clearly, wrt "political affiliation", he is purposefully not politically affiliated.
@Bayesian That tweet is from Max Blumenthal, who writes for The Nation, The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America. Those are as far left as one can get in the media landscape.
You want to trust Blumenthal's subjective opinion that "Routh declares himself a political independent, neither Republican or Democrat, but clearly loathes Trump" ?
Do you think if Tucker Carlson had said about an intended Harris assissinator, "the would-be killer declares himself a political independent, neither Republican or Democrat, but clearly loathes Harris," you would trust that judgment?
@Bayesian He votes democrat. He votes in Democrat primaries. He donates only to democrats. He is tweeting at Biden and Harris. He has a Biden-Harris bumper sticker. He calls for the death of Trump in 2023 and then has an AK-47 scope and sits for 12 hours at the golf course waiting to shoot trump. If this was the opposite. The guy was wearing the MAGA hat and shirts. He has the MAGA bumper sticker, he donates to Trump and republicans. He votes in the Republican primary, He voted for Trump in 2016. He calls for the death of Harris and then tried to kill Harris. but in both cases he did not tick some box of Republican or Democrat. Although I do not know how he votes in the Democrat primary without registering as a Democrat..
@Bayesian If someone was hitting someone else repeatedly with a baseball bat every minute, and you asked him are you hitting that guy? And he says no I am not. You would then say, well he self-identified as not hitting ?
@brianwang This is why I am not participating in this market. It is so glaringly obvious. But this website is overwhelmingly biased towards the left and will do mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious. A similar market for the first shooter was (imo incorrectly) resolved as him having been republican too.
@Dynd I’m definitely trying hard to be as fair and cautious as I can be. I’m going to go by what the media reports seem to converge to, regardless of if I agree or not. I’d be very thankful for any reporting you would like to provide that evidences your conclusion.
@JeffBerman The nature of a swing voter is that they swing back and forth. You can make a lot of hay by selectively quoting his anti-Trump stuff, but it isn’t giving a full picture.
Opposition to Trump and support of Harris isn’t determinative, otherwise we’d conclude that Dick Cheney’s left wing.
To balance out your examples, he tweeted about voting for Trump in 2016:
He’s written about voting for Trump in 2016:
And as a bonus, he’s appeared in the propaganda video for a far right / Neo-Nazi militia: https://x.com/chieftrumpster/status/1835494617728340408
@OP Everything you put forward as the would-be assassin's support for Trump is 8 years old. He's not a "swing voter". The question is about his political affiliation now, not when Obama was still president.
FEC Records show he made 19 political donations - all to Democrats.
@OP The propoganda video is a blackrock funded video the Ukrainian group. It is the Democrats and Biden who are funding the Ukrainian military and war against Russia. Routh wrote a book in 2022 and published in 2023 where he talked about wanting Putin dead and advocated for killing Trump. The foreign entity support of a Democrat does not flip that Democrat into a non-Democrat. Routh is Left in the US. The Democrats support Ukraine and that includes the Azov brigade. So all Democrats are extreme right wing?
@OP adding context for "far right now Nazi group"
The Azov Regiment is a Ukrainian military unit, originally a volunteer militia formed in 2014 to fight Russian-backed separatists. It became part of Ukraine's National Guard and gained attention for its combat effectiveness, though it has been controversial due to far-right nationalist ties. It played a key role in the defense of Mariupol during Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
@ThomasEstabrook Honestly a militant atheist who replaced religion with unbridled patriotism and a desire to end all wars (by showing up and fighting them himself) still probably makes him one of the more sane would-be Presidential assassins we've had throughout history.
@ThomasEstabrook In his self published book, he advocated for the assassination of Trump.