Florida man arrested after plowing his car into a Trump campaign voter registration tent.

Mugshot of  Gregory William Loel Timm, who is accused of the attack. Police handout/NBC News.

A man in Florida has been arrested after a vehicle ramming attack on a Trump campaign voter registration tent in Jacksonville. NBC News. The attacker has been identified as Gregory William Loel Timm, a 27 year old male. He was charged with two counts of assault on someone 65 years or older, one count of criminal mischief and driving on a suspended license. The victims in the case said that the man rammed into the tent and then flipped them off and drove off. Nobody was injured in the attack. GOP officials across the country condemned the attack while so has the local Democratic Party. 

Today in Jacksonville, Florida six Trump Campaign volunteers were intentionally targeted while registering voters. pic.twitter.com/0wzaCYh5ut

— Duval County GOP (@DuvalGOP) February 8, 2020

Law Enforcement has been notified. Be careful tough guys who you play with! https://t.co/1Pq0hOrzy2

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2020

 My Comment:
This incident happened yesterday but media coverage didn't really seem to begin until today. My guess is that they were waiting for more information about the attacker who hadn't been identified right away.

Though nobody was hurt in this attack it wasn't from lack of trying. It would have been very easy to hurt someone in this kind of incident, either from being hit by the vehicle directly or by trying to get out of the way. It was luck that nobody was hurt or killed.

The charges seem appropriate. The assault charges are felonies which are enhanced due to the age of the victims. The mischief charge could be an misdemeanor or felony, but since that is based on the value of the property destroyed it's likely going to be a misdemeanor. Still, I don't think they could prove attempted murder and nobody actually got hurt. But if he is convicted of all charges he should be in prison for some time.

This attack seems politically motivated but it doesn't seem planned. My guess is that this guy just saw a voter registration booth and lost his mind. It seems like a more spur of the moment thing that didn't have a level of planning as there would be much more effective ways to attack than this. All in all it was fairly pathetic.

However, I do think this counts as politically motivated violence and maybe even terrorism. This attack would not have happened if it wasn't for the attackers hatred of President Trump and his supporters and his goal was to prevent people from registering to vote. That passes the smell test for me.

But I think it pretty clearly backfired. This attack has outraged Republicans everywhere and probably steeled their resolve to vote in November. The Democrats got majorly embarrassed (and I do give the local branch credit for denouncing this attack) and everyone thinks this guy is an idiot.

Is more violence coming? I am not sure. Tensions are pretty high but I don't see them being as high between Democrats and Republicans as it was in 2016. People on the left still dislike President Trump but he hasn't turned out to be as bad as they made him out to be. Though there has been some violence in the first couple of years of Trump's presidency, they have faded into the background. Time will tell if that continues. 

However, I do expect there to be some violence between the various factions of the left. If the Democratic Party succeeds in their plans to keep Sanders from being the nominee, again, I think there is potential for violence. The Milwaukee convention could be a mess if the Sanders supporters don't get what they want...