Rep. Tim Ryan, who is running for Ohio’s open Senate seat, and who ran a 2016 presidential election campaign on the Democratic Party ticket, unleashed some hyperpartisan rhetoric about Donald Trump supporters on Tuesday.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Ryan said that the “exhausted majority” needs to “kill and confront” the MAGA movement.
“What is your message to Ohio Republicans in this general election who may look at J.D. Vance and say I don’t like the way he’s running the campaign, maybe I don’t like the guy, and they’re giving you a look?” “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist said,
“I’m one of the most bipartisan members of Congress,” Ryan claimed. “The last two congresses, I have been in the top 10% of most bipartisan. I want to work across the aisle. Look, Democrats aren’t right on everything, and I’m willing to sit down and have conversations about how we can move out of this age of stupidity and into an age of reconciliation and reform. How do we fix all of these broken systems.”
“Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not the extremists that we are dealing with every single day,” Ryan continued. “We’ve got to kill and confront that movement, but working with normal mainstream Republicans, that’s going to be really, really important.”
“I’m saying exhausted majority, Democrats, Republicans, Independents against the extremists, leading an era of reform around reconciliation so we can heal this country and move into the future,” Ryan added. “Again, I don’t have a billion-dollar donor to fund me. I need low-dollar people who can go to my website and chip in a couple of bucks and help us put this extremist movement to bed so we can move on with being Americans again.”
Ryan ran a fledgling 2020 campaign for president that ended with him dropping out in October 2019. Ryan has served in the Congress since 2003.
The Ohio Rep.’s vitriolic statement is similar to other incendiary remarks from Trump opponents that invoke violent imagery.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in 2015, the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson said that “they’re still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump. And that’s a fact.”
During the second Trump impeachment trial, a powerful video was shown on the Democratic Party’s frequent use of violent rhetoric.
Remember, these are the same Democrats accusing tens of millions of law-abiding, peace-loving Americans of being a threat to the country 👇 pic.twitter.com/ter9gCzzTS
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 30, 2022
The Biden administration has been constantly referring to the alleged “threat to democracy” posed by “MAGA forces.” However, the political rhetoric that comes out of the Democratic Party is consistently more extreme, and occasionally even violent, than anything that comes out of the Republican Party — including MAGA supporters.
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OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion.