Violent Political Rhetoric and Extreme Disarmament Agenda Belie Tim Ryan's ‘Bipartisan Unifier' Claim

Hardcore leftist Congressman Tim Ryan is back on the campaign trail yet again with boasts about what a centrist he is.

September 22, 2022 By David Codrea

“U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, declared that Americans need to ‘kill and confront’ the ‘extremist’ Republican movement if the nation is going to make political progress,” Fox News reports. “Ryan made his comments during his Tuesday interview on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe, where he called in to discuss the state of his Senate race against Republican candidate J.D. Vance...”

“I’m one of the most bipartisan members of Congress,” Ryan declared, trying to position himself as a moderate centrist. “The last two congresses, I have been in the top 10% of most bipartisan. I want to work across the aisle.”

“Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not the extremists that we are dealing with every single day,” Ryan continued, to show how conciliatory he can be. “We’ve got to kill and confront that movement, but working with normal mainstream Republicans, that’s going to be really, really important.”

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends upon what the meaning of the word extremist” is. Because if you go by the current Democrat talking point narrative standard, pretty much any Republican to the right of Susan Collins is a raving fascist.

The object, of course, is to keep moving the “center” to the left as the left keeps moving toward full-blown Marxism. And the GOP “mainstream” Ryan is counting on, keeps falling for “compromises,” especially on guns, as evidenced by the ridiculous “bipartisan gun safety bill,” signed on to by 15 Senate Republicans in June.

A Republican who doesn’t support that, and who isn’t open to giving up even more, is one of those “extremists” Ryan, fellow Democrats and the entirety of the establishment media will vilify and stir up public indignation over. How many Republicans of principle do you know who will not only resist that pressure but actually loudly and competently push back against?

As for Ryan being a moderate? Writer and political consultant Shane Harris ends any illusions about that in a Cincinnati Enquirer assessment showing who the “extremist” really is.

“In just the past two years, he’s voted to federalize elections, admit Washington, D.C., as the 51st state, impose onerous new background check requirements on gun owners, and grant mass amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, in addition to co-sponsoring legislation that would restrict the right of states to legislate on abortion, and voting in favor of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion ‘Build Back Better’ Act,” Harris documents. “In fact, Ryan has voted with President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time this Congress ... Unsurprisingly, and in recognition of his far-left voting record, Ryan has received the endorsement of progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and held a virtual fundraiser with Hillary Clinton earlier this year.”

Any “Republican” eager to work with that needs a “D” after his name. That includes any willing to give Ryan what he wants on guns (which is basically all of them, but he’ll take what he can get piecemeal).

“Congressman Tim Ryan is a determined gun safety champion with a record of legislative effectiveness,” Giffords gushes in its endorsement. “Representative Ryan was steadfast in calling for the passage of common sense gun safety measures, including universal background checks. He ... led a caravan of gun safety advocates to Mitch McConnell’s hometown to demand that the Senate take up gun safety legislation. [W]e’re excited to see him continue tackling issues like regulating ghost guns, promoting safe storage initiatives, and closing loopholes that allow perpetrators of domestic violence to obtain firearms.”

But wait, like the old Sham Wow commercials used to say, there’s more! There always is.

Per his office’s press release, Ryan wants the government to impose mandates for “closing dangerous loopholes, strengthening safe storage requirements, targeting gun trafficking, banning bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, and more.”

You offer a “common sense gun safety” measure under the guise of it being “a good first step,” conveniently ignoring the tens of thousands of municipal, county, state and federal “first steps” that are already on the books and doing nothing but infringing on the “law-abiding.” Then some dumb and/or cowardly Republicans, fearing the Democrats and the media will call them “extremists” and worse, cave.

Having established a new beachhead from which to press forward for more, the Democrats issue their next demand, excoriating any who resist as “uncompromising,” selfish, lickspittles to the “gun lobby,” domestic terrorists and racists to boot.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Where in nature is it a good idea to throw a scrap of flesh to a circling pack of jackals and think that satisfied, they’ll be on their way, instead of sensing fear they’ll move in closer for more?

Those who don’t capitulate are the “extremists” Ryan says Americans need to “kill and confront,” and while the counterargument is that he’s talking metaphorically, he’s also talking in a tone that is increasingly put forth by the Democrats, including by Joe Biden, asserting in his national address that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

“In a remarkable turn, the president of the United States was identifying his predecessor and his followers — a group that arguably includes millions of U.S. citizens — as the gravest threat to the stability of the 246-year American experiment,” The Washington Post noted. “Not since the Civil War has an American president issued such a stark warning about the behavior and menace posed by fellow Americans.”

“In making his fiery denunciation, the president sought to distinguish between Trump and his followers and ‘mainstream’ Republicans, including those who have worked on bipartisan legislation with Democrats,” The Post elaborated, setting the narrative tone we see Ryan and others parroting to great effect.

Unfortunately, as things now stand, Ryan stands a chance of winning, something JD Vance and his campaign have in many ways brought about themselves through his past condemnation of Donald Trump (see “Developing Ohio Senate Race Shows Gun Owners Must Demand Unequivocal Commitments from Politicians,” Firearms News, Dec. 2021).

“GOP Insiders Reportedly Sounding ‘Code Red’ Over JD Vance Blowing Ohio Senate Race,” Mediaite (admittedly put out by leftist sympathizers) observed. “‘Worst Campaign’ You Could Possibly Run.”

“Ryan has raised a staggering $12 million for his campaign so far. And he is using that war chest to blanket Ohio airwaves with ads touting his blue-collar bona fides,” The (equally leftist) Daily Beast noted. “With Vance largely absent on the airwaves and the campaign trail, Republicans fret that Ryan is successfully defining himself before Vance is—and that time is running out for the Republican to right the ship.”

Sure, there’s some self-serving psyops going on, but they have a point. And Donald Trump himself didn’t help matters as much as he could have at a recent (and not fully attended) rally in Youngstown, where he told the crowd “JD is kissing my a** he wants my support so bad."

There’s no room for that, especially since it looks like other Trump senatorial endorsements in states like Pennsylvania -- where the wholly enigmatic and thus uninspiring Dr. Mehmet Oz is trailing virtual socialist and doctrinaire gun-grabber John Fetterman -- may not be the winners he’s assured us they will be.

While it’s looking like Republicans have a chance of not blowing the house, at this writing it looks like Democrats have a better than even chance to hold the Senate, with all the danger that represents for gun owners, particularly in terms of renewed efforts to end the filibuster and stack the Supreme Court.

And a Democrat win in Ohio will put the Buckeye State squarely in the gun-grabbers’ sights, as outgoing Vichycon (look it up) lump (and NRA endorsee) Rob Portman would be replaced by Giffords/Everytown apparatchik Ryan, who, along with senior Senator Sherrod Brown, will be pushing the citizen disarmament agenda for all they’re worth.

The best way to give the violence monopolists what they want is for “mainstream” Republicans to take the fire out of the bellies of constituents the Democrat smear as “extremists.” That’s the best way, as the saying goes, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

About the Author

Columnist David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter @dcodrea and Facebook.