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Just pointing out Rick Wilson is an anti-Trump Republican though, he is certainly not a Democrat, given his positions on anything except Trump. And the attempted shooter at the golf course had also voted for Trump before sharply turning away from him. How much of this is about dissident Republicans or supporters who feel very strongly about Trump?
This is not to minimise it, I really do not want Trump to be assassinated. But sometimes those who hate the most are those who feel betrayed by their own side/choice. Splits or schisms within religions or ideologies are often more vicious than between opposing ideologies. We expect the side we don't like to suck, but when its your own side it hits deeper. See Protestant vs Catholic, Night of Long Knives, Stalin vs Lenin/Trotsky etc. Both Wilson and Routh clearly hate Trump, but neither are examples of standard Democrats.
This sort of framing, while beneficial to the Rick Wilsons of the world, is likely untrue.
His political positions on most things except Trump aren't really compatible with Democrats. And he was part of the Republican party since the 80s. He is just a Republican who really hates Trump.
Is that why he's favorably citing David Corn?
https://x.com/DavidCornDC/status/1836776564916174907
He's switched many positions and is not coming back (he can't his site is funded to be this way)
Sure, that's what allying with people you disagree with means. It doesn't mean he has all of a sudden become a Democrat, after 40 some years. I think it's kind of odd that people talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome, but don't seem to want to see that it affected some Republicans too.
If he supports Democrats to win elections and has switched to Democrat positions, how is he not a Democrat?
Because most of his positions have not changed. He is in his own words a Bill Buckley, Hobbesian, small government conservative (which may sound familiar to a certain ex-mod) He wrote a book about how the Republican party under Trump and the Democrats both suck. Now I think his hate for Trump is over the top and he has let it warp his view, Trump isn't the devil. But its clear from his writings, he thinks the best way to get a small g government and fiscal responsibility is to reform the Republican party without Trump. And he thinks the best way to do that is rob Trump of his influence by trying to make sure he loses. But his long term vision is just not compatible with the Democratic party, which he repeats in his book. Its an alliance of convenience, the enemy of my enemy kind of situation as he explicitly calls it.
Like RFK switched to supporting Trump but many of his positions are not Republican ones. He is still an independent, he is just aligning with Trump for the moment. He may well run again as an independent next election.
The Republican party under Trump has moved somewhat away from the neo-liberal conservatism of Bush and Reagan and towards a set of more populist, protectionist policies. That means there are indeed Republicans who have not changed their positions who are now less happy with the party. And vice versa with the Democrats move away from the working class. Doesn't mean they have suddenly flipped their positions.
Rick Wilson July 22, 2024
Yes? Given he wants the Democrats to beat Trump he is hardly going to say their candidates are terrible is he?
Beyond that:
George Bush also said "Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country."
McConnell: "I know Joe Biden pretty well. He’s a good guy; I like him personally,” McConnell told an audience in Louisville on Tuesday, referring to the more than 20 years they spent together in the Senate and the deals they worked on when Biden was vice president."
Romney: "Romney, who’s called Trump a “phony” and frequently criticized the president the last four years, described Biden as a “man of character" who wants “to bring honor and respect to the White House,” which is “important here and around the world.”
Geoff Duncan: "Well, I am a lifelong Republican. I believe in conservative principles, but I can't help but notice that Donald Trump is a trainwreck for us. And my game plan to try to eliminate him from our party is to vote for Joe Biden."
Christine Whitman: "Biden is a decent man, he's a steady man," Whitman told Reuters. "Trump is trying to paint the world of Joe Biden as horrific - but that's Trump's America now."
You can think your political opponents are good people, good Americans and even great leaders. It still doesn't mean you support their policies. Especially for those who seem to hate what they believe Trump has done to their party.
Again, to be clear, the realignment towards voters is probably a genuinely positive move for the GOP, but that does not mean that the more neo-liberal Republicans who really dislike that change and Trump suddenly become Democrats. They may align with them in a 2 party system, but that is not the same thing.
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This appears to be untrue.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/did-ryan-routh-actually-vote-144911519.html?guccounter=1
Right, his tweet was that his choice to support was Trump in 2016 not that he voted for him.
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I think it is a cultural thing. Almost all of the members of all the political tribes (myself certainly included) are at most armchair activists who mostly post on social media. The people who are willing to use gun violence to further their political aims are always a tiny minority, but the size of that minority differs very much dependent on the tribe.
In a bizzaro world where Trump dropped out of the race and Adolf Hitler became the replacement candidate, the blue tribe would certainly feel that Hitler needs shooting. But the average coastal city-dweller who puts their pronouns on twitter is certainly not going to snipe Hitler. On the other hand, if parts of the red tribe feel that Hitler needs shooting (which they would), a small fraction of these actually have the capabilities to carry out a serious assassination attempt.
So if say 10% of the blue tribe think that the US would be better off if someone killed Trump, and if 1% (Lizardman constant and all that) of the red tribe also thought that, I would expect most serious attempts to come from from the people at least vaguely associated with the red tribe.
This is not universal, but specific to the US. Gun culture, 2nd amendment (violently resisting tyrants) and all that are very much red tribe coded. In post-war Germany, the highest profile assassinations (such as the RAF killing an AG) were carried out by left wing terrorists, who picked up gun handling skills over a few years in the underground.
There is certainly the possibility that some fringe left people decided to get really good at long distance shooting in 2020 for the specific purpose of murdering anyone who would in their eyes turn America into a fascist dictatorship. But that is a very lonely path, you would have to tell all your blue tribe friends "I practice rifle shooting because it is fun" which would be received about as well as "my hobby is tuning my diesel engine so that it emits as much smoke as possible". From the state's point of view, keeping tabs on a few blue tribe activists who own long arms is much easier than figuring out who among the zillions of rifle-owning red tribe activists is actually likely to climb on some roof and shoot a candidate and who is only cosplaying with their tactical vests.
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At a certain level this is a distinction without a difference. Trump wasn't attacked by his enemies on the left, but by other enemies allied with the left who... Taking the Rick Wilson example. Rick hates Trump, endorses Democrats, takes money from Democrats, etc. etc. Maybe at some level he'll call himself a Republican, but at this point that sounds like marketing. If tomorrow Tulsi Gabbard called for Biden to be shot, we wouldn't say, "wow, the radical left at it again." But we all know where the lines are really drawn.
This is really one of the key points of American politics over the last 15 years: Conservatives feel that elected Republicans don't represent them. Conservatives would overwhelmingly not identify Rick Wilson as one of them. So it feels like bullshit to pin him (or other such) on us just because he continues to call himself a Republican for rhetorical purposes. If I rob a store in shoe polish does that prove black crime?
This is probably true, but being a Republican and being a Conservative are not the same thing. He presumably feels that his party is no longer what it once was, and I think he is correct. Whether it is better or worse depends on who is doing the judging, but he at least clearly feels Trump has hijacked the party.
I am not saying he is right to feel that way, or that the Republican party is not more representative of much of its electorate now (I think it is, or at least is cosplaying it while Trump is around, we'll see how things go after him), but rather his level of hate is driven by that feeling of betrayal, which looks to be much stronger than even the average Democrat. So strong he created an entire organization to try and stop Trump getting elected and is willing to work with people he also disagrees with just to do that.
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The “Hitler 2.0” argument proves way too much. Do Democrats hate fertilizer bombs so much they wouldn’t use them on Turbo Hitler? How about samurai swords?
No, people don’t assassinate Presidents because of a more general principle: it’s fucking stupid. It’s difficult, it’s suicide, and there’s so much better to do with their time. They go ride a bike or chat up girls instead. The exceptions are a long tail of nutjobs. Some tiny percent of them make the dumb fucking choice and try to impress Jodie Foster.
Which means the load-bearing part of your theory is the last line. Are the Democrats doing a better job corralling the crazies? Does the kind of illness that gravitates to radical leftism tend towards lower functionality than the radical right? I’m not sure. I just know you can’t use it to understand more mainstream motives.
I do think that the radical left tends to attract lower-functioning nut jobs than the radical right, for what it’s worth. We don’t hear about white supremacist compounds in Idaho disintegrating because no one did chores the way anti capitalist coffee shops do.
Yeah, but where's the right-wing equivalent of, e.g. the Symbionese Liberation Army, or black bloc?
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The spread between democrats and republicans in gun ownership is real, but it’s not that big- there’s plenty of democrat gun owners. And while AR-15 ownership probably skews way more right wing, a deer rifle would work just as well.
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