I remember when the assassination attempt of an American politician would stop us in our tracks and take all of the news coverage. That has changed.
Ryan Routh allegedly wrote a letter months before his visit to Trump International Golf Course calling the trip an “assassination attempt.”
It’s been almost 45 years, but I still remember exactly where I was when President Ronald Reagan was shot. I was in my Dungeons & Dragons club after school (yes, I was a high school nerd), when one of the other members burst in and breathlessly shared the news.
I’m bringing this up now because the trial of Ryan Routh just began in Florida. And if the first question out of your mouth was “Who’s Ryan Routh?” then you are making my point exactly.
Routh, 59, is the man accused of planning to kill President Donald Trump at a West Palm Beach golf course last September. Is this ringing any bells yet?
Is Ryan Routh already a trivia question no one can answer?
According to prosecutors, Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before positioning himself in shrubbery near the golf course with a rifle. A Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of the rifle through a chain-link fence before Trump came into view. Officials say Routh aimed his weapon at the agent, who opened fire. Routh reportedly dropped his rifle and fled without firing a shot.
After a brief car chase, sheriff’s deputies in Martin County captured Routh a few miles north of where the incident occurred.
Jury selection began Sept. 8 in U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s courtroom at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Assuming the case stays on schedule, opening statements should begin Sept. 11. But there’s fair reason to wonder if these legal proceedings won’t go off the rails, most likely sooner than later.
A series of bizarre requests in what will be a bizarre case
Routh has decided to represent himself in the case, although backup counsel is available if he needs it. So far, he hasn’t given any indication that he does, but he’s made some unusual requests, as USA TODAY reported.
To prepare his case, Routh has requested that he be housed “in a far off, quiet room” with access to documents, phone, visitation, email, a typewriter, female strippers and “a putting green so I can work on my putting (a golf joke).”
He’s also suggested he could settle his differences with Trump either in a fistfight or “a round of golf with the racist pig, he wins he can execute me, I win I get his job.”
I’m no student of either the law or modern psychiatry, but Routh seems like he could be preparing a “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” defense. Under federal law, a defendant can be determined legally irresponsible for criminal actions if he has “a severe mental disease or defect, (and) was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts.”
That might be where this case turns: Does Routh really have mental health issues, or just putting on an act? If he has mental health issues, will that make it hard for him to really understand what he was doing on the golf course that day or in the courthouse now?
What if they held a trial for the attempted assassination of a US president – and nobody cared?
That’s not really my issue. My issue is, why haven’t people been talking about this case more?
I’m not buying that our tastes have become too sophisticated for weird news. Quite the opposite. If you spend any amount of time on social media feeds, it’s apparent we thrive on unusual characters and situations, both of which this case seems to deliver.
It’s certainly true that there are a lot of other distractions out there. Because I live near where the alleged attempted assassination occurred and where the trial will be occurring, there’s been a decent amount of coverage of the case in our local news.
Googling keywords about the case shows there’s been some interest on the part of national media as well. But I feel safe in saying the highest-profile legal case in the weeks leading up to Routh’s trial has been the one involving accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who’s been dead six years now.
I’m not saying we should all forget about the Epstein case. What I am suggesting is an assassination attempt against a president – or presidential candidate, as Trump was at that time – ought to be a bigger deal in our collective consciousness.
Maybe the first assassination attempt against Trump, which occurred several weeks earlier in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a bit more dramatic. The would-be assassin got shots off, wounding Trump and killing one of his supporters, before being gunned down by Secret Service snipers. (Bonus points to anyone who can recall that shooter’s name without looking it up online.)
Yet even a couple of weeks after that happened, the incident seemed to be largely forgotten. The ear Band-Aids were a fad that passed quickly. To my knowledge, there was never a comparable symbol commemorating what Routh is accused of doing.
No shots, no foul? Is that really the point we’ve reached in American society? Regardless of anyone’s personal feelings about Trump, we can’t normalize or excuse Routh’s alleged behavior.
Our country is what it is, largely because Americans generally have respected the rule of law. Taking potshots at government officials is something we’ve traditionally accepted as happening in Third World countries that aren’t as “enlightened” as we are.
Maybe we’ve reached a point where there’s such an onslaught of news, heavy, important news that we all should know about, that we’re starting to tune some of it out as a defense mechanism. There must be a limit on how many times we allow ourselves to be worked into states of shock or outrage.
Also, the flow of information keeps moving so fast that it’s hard to stay focused on any one thing. By the time this column is published, there may be some new headlines gobbling up all our attention bandwidth.
All I ask is that this case – which in an earlier era might well have been dubbed a “Trial of the Century” – doesn’t get overlooked.
Routh’s alleged actions don’t rise to the level of a moon landing or the start of another world war, but they aren’t inconsequential, either. If we treat them as if they are, that’ll say more about our society than it will about him.
Blake Fontenay is USA TODAY’s commentary editor.
