Twice in one summer now, a Democrat with a long gun was able to get within a few hundred yards of former President Trump. You gotta hand it to the Left, they're nothing if not creative. What used to be the October Surprise came to be the tedious October Expected Non-Surprise. So they've introduced the First July Surprise (assassination attempt), the Second July Surprise (palace coup against their own president), and the September Surprise (second assassination attempt). From this pattern, Kamala better hope her poll numbers hold steady lest she find herself "surprised" into a Barco lounger watching Matlock next to a creepy hair sniffer.
It appears the attempted assassin is a man named Ryan Wesley Routh. The UK's Daily Mail reached out to his son, Oran, for his thoughts. When they contacted him, Oran stated that he hadn't been aware of the assassination attempt until the moment they asked him for comment.
In other words, a foreign newspaper was able to identify and locate the shooter's son (who, for all anyone knew at the time, might have been involved) before our gazillion-dollar-budget FBI, Secret Service, or vaunted intelligence community did. And this was after they'd let another leftist get within shooting distance of the former president. And this was after it was a vigilant citizen and Florida police, not the feds, who identified and arrested the would-be assassin.
Way to be on your A-game, boys.
But upon hearing that his father was the suspected assassin, 35-year-old Oran stated that his dad "hates Trump, as every reasonable person does." That's how Oran wanted to present himself and his father to the world. No apology, no call for privacy for the family, no pleading to see how the investigation unfolds, not even the obligatory lip service against political violence. Just a crude statement of hate. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.
PJ's Matt Margolis has Oran's entire conversation and follow-up texts documented here. Oran said he didn't believe his father owned a gun (he did). He said that, as far as he knew, his dad only had a couple of traffic tickets (he was a convicted felon). At the time of the assassination, he thought his father was in Hawaii (he wasn't).
So, despite his protestations that "I know my dad," it would appear there were oodles that Oran didn't know. But he knows, with certainty and with pride, that his dad hates Trump. And for Oran, that was enough. In a ranting text, Oran called his dad a martyr and lamented how disassociated our political process has become from "real problems and practical solutions."
Practical solutions. Like murdering your political opponents?
Oran continued, texting that "we're exhausted and embarrassed" by our political situation. But he's not embarrassed that his dad tried to murder someone for disagreeing with him. In his own words, hating Trump is something "every reasonable person does."
Related: Save Your Empathy, Matt Bai. Trump Supporters Don't Need It.
So our descent into Orwellian logic continues apace. Hate is reason. Murder is practical. Cowardice is martyrdom. Oran joins the ranks of those who will never forgive Trump for the assassination attempts against him. And he will be fully supported by a contemporary culture that treats personal feelings as a legitimate political ideology.
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