Would-Be Trump Assassin: ‘DEMOCRACY Is on the Ballot and We Cannot Lose’

“DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.” That might sound like a soundbite from your least favorite CNN or MSNBC talking heads, and it probably is, but in this case, it is a direct quote from a social media post by the man identified as the attempted Trump assassin.

Ryan W. Routh is reportedly the man with an AK-47 who took tried to take shots at Donald Trump at the latter’s golf course Sunday. While Facebook and X have, of course, scrubbed Routh’s social media profiles, I was among those who were able to record his X profile before that happened. What is interesting is that Routh seems to be explicitly pro-Biden and certainly anti-Trump.

Looking at a few of Routh’s recent replies on Twitter gives somewhat of an insight into the political opinions of a man who lobbied for Ukraine, offered the services of Afghan soldiers to Ukraine, and seems to have been an emotionally-charged, irrational nutcase. For instance, look at the April post below to the Democrat President who was then also the Democrats’ 2024 candidate:

@POTUS [Biden] Your 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. We cannot afford to fail. The world is counting on us to show the way.

Routh seems to have believed that so strongly that he was willing to try and kill Trump rather than see him win. In July, Routh encouraged Biden and Kamala Harris to visit the individuals injured at the same rally where Trump was shot in July and attend the funeral of Corey Comperatore, who was killed. “Trump will never do anything for them,” he asserted — falsely because Trump fundraised for and called the victims and families.

The attempted assassin unsurprisingly displays symptoms of mental instability. Routh, for instance, seems to have gone back and forth between nastily critiquing then-GOP candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy and begging them to unite to “fight” and “stay on the ballot to the end.” In justice to Ramaswamy and Haley, it seems that his latter begging was due to his hatred of Trump, considering the above post about Biden vs. Trump in 2024. In any case, his language in addressing them was contradictory, depending on what was happening at the moment.

This was just one topic on which I noticed Routh being self-contradictory, emotional, and wild in his language. A post even more extreme than the above illustrates what I mean. Routh replied to X and SpaceX owner Elon Musk in April:

@elonmusk I would like to buy a rocket from you. I wish to load it with a warhead for Putins Black sea mansion bunker to end him. Can you give me a price please. It can be old and used as not returning.

Routh ended with a telephone number. I think what has happened in Ukraine is tragic and that far too many Ukrainians have died, but I also know that the war needs to end, not escalate into nuclear Armageddon. That would help no one except perhaps a handful of elites.

Whether Routh was perfectly serious or not when he wrote the above (and he has other wild posts about Russia and Ukraine too), it still is a ridiculous and insane post to make. I also cannot help noticing that it violates X’s rules, but was not censored until after Routh tried to shoot Trump.

It is interesting that Routh appears to have traveled to and from Ukraine, and Newsweek and Semafor reportedly interviewed him about his efforts to recruit fighters for Ukraine. So authorities must have been aware of him and at least some of his statements and activities.

This story about Routh and the attempted assassination is still developing, and PJ Media will bring updates as they are available.