By all accounts, it was longtime Greensboro resident Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who allegedly waited in the bushes behind a fence around a Florida golf course in an attempt to put a bullet into former President Donald Trump, who’s now running again to be the next president of the United States.

As with anything and everything in this heated election season, members of both political parties are pointing fingers at each other and freely tossing around supposed reasons why Routh apparently wanted Trump dead.

Since 1998, Routh was arrested many, many, times – and he was often convicted of crimes, including felonies.

As for political motives, no one can be certain, but his voting registration and other voting practices are public record. He first registered to vote in Guilford County in 1988 and, at that time, he registered as a Democrat.

 In 2002, however, he changed his registration to non-affiliated.

Soon after that, he was kicked off the voter rolls for being a felon after he was found to be in possession of a fully automatic machine gun when he barricaded himself inside the former United Roofing building on West Lee Street in Greensboro. He gave himself up after a three-hour standoff with police.

Routh reregistered in 2004 as unaffiliated and stayed on the voter rolls until 2010 when he was once again kicked off the voter list after a felony conviction for possession of stolen goods.

The last time he voted was on March 5 of this year in the primary in Guilford   County, at which time he requested a Democratic ballot.

As for his previous political record, here’s his voting history.  All of these votes were in Guilford County…

11/08/1988 General, In-Person, Election Day

11/06/1990 General, In-Person, Election Day

02/26/1991 Municipal, In-Person, Election Day

11/03/1992 General, In-Person,  Election Day

11/05/1996 General,  In-Person, Election Day

11/07/2000 General,  Provisional Ballot. Election Day

11/04/2008 General, In-Person, Election Day

10/06/2009 Municipal, In-Person, Election Day

11/03/2009 Municipal, In-Person, Election Day

11/02/2012 Reregistration after serving time as a felon

11/06/2012 General, Early Voting

 03/05/2024 Primary, In-Person, Election Day (Democratic ballot)

As of Wednesday, Sept. 18, his voter status is listed as “Active” for the Tuesday, Nov. 5 election, but he probably won’t make it to his polling place – Lindley Recreation Center at 2907 Springwood Dr. in Greensboro.

In terms of a possible political motive, Routh stated on Twitter that he was once a Trump supporter. In June of 2020, he direct-messaged Trump the following: “While you were my choice in 2106 [sic], I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointed and it seems you are getting worse and devolving…I will be glad when gone.”

In 2020, he tweeted that he was supporting Bernie Sanders and that he was shifting away from Joe Biden, writing on March 4, “I was not supporting Bernie, but now I am; as sleepy Joe stands for nothing.”

More recently, Routh’s posts on various social media sites have supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After the first assassination attempt on Trump, Routh was  telling Biden and Harris on social media to visit those who were injured: “Trump will never do anything for them. … Show the world what compassion and humanity is all about.”

Other comments and evidence show Routh was supporting the Biden/Harris ticket in the 2024 election.

So, in short, he first registered as a Democrat, supported Trump in 2016, then went back to supporting Democrats and, in this year’s primary he got a Democratic ballot and has made several public comments relaying his utter dissatisfaction with Trump.

However, a lot of people greatly despise Trump but never try to assassinate him.

So what sent Routh over the edge?

No one can say for sure, however, there’s no question that his overriding passion in life, since February of 2022, has been singular – defending Ukraine.

Over the last two and a half years, Routh has been doing everything he can to help Ukraine in the war against Russia.

In the Tuesday, Sept. 10 presidential debate, Trump would not say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war and, in the past Trump has shown admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, stated that we should dissolve NATO, and said that he would let Putin do what he wants regarding the invasion of Ukraine and other countries.

Routh spoke about the need for compassion many times in public interviews.  He went there to fight but was told that since he was 56 with no military experience, he wasn’t “an ideal candidate.”  Then he started doing everything he could to recruit others as soldiers.

“So, a question as far as why I’m here,” he told Newsweek in an interview.  “To me, you know a lot of the other conflicts are gray – but this conflict is definitely black and white.  This is about good versus evil. This is storybook. You know, from any movie we ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.”

He also said that people should be “caring and kind and generous and unselfish and take care of one another …. The  most important thing in the world is just to show human beings that we’re kind and we’re caring and that we take care of each other and we all move forward as one collective whole unit.”

 “For some reason,” Routh added. “Russia does not understand this concept that we’re all one unit and we have to get along and work together as normal human beings. This is 2022. We have to work together and it seems asinine that we have a leader in a country that does not understand the concept of being unselfish and being generous and kind …  It blows my mind.”

This may be one reason Routh turned so hard against Trump – the fear that, if Trump won, the US would end its military support for Ukraine.

“Every project that I promote,” he said in the interview, “is about getting people over here to support the Ukrainians.  We’re at a critical juncture in this war where we are sitting on the fence ….If everybody is complacent and doesn’t join this fight then guess who’s going to win. ….This is the most important thing going on in the world today….

Now we’ve let it [Russia] slip back into terrorism so it’s just the world needs to respond.”

 He went on to say that some world leaders are not sending military aid and, therefore, “We’re gonna have to elect new leaders the next go around that have a backbone and that, you know, have the fortitude to say, hey, we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior.”

So, a case could be made that the fear of another Trump presidency would mean the end of support for Ukraine – something Routh seems to worry about more passionately than anything else in the world.

Of course, there’s another, simpler possibility as well.

One former sheriff’s deputy, who encountered Routh constantly as a law enforcement officer since Routh was often on the wrong side of the law, said he believes the motive is simpler than many people realize.  He said that some of the media will try and portray Routh as a right-wing of left-wing activist, but stated that, basically, it was just a result of Routh’s huge mental problems that have been on display over decades.

“He’s not a white supremacist; he’s not a right-wing nut; he wasn’t politically motivated,” the former deputy said.  “He’s just someone whose life was a failure and he wanted to make a name for himself.”

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