A Villager who has gained worldwide notoriety for his disdain of President Donald Trump has received another threatening letter.
Ed McGinty said the letter came in the mail Thursday to his Village of Hadley home. It is handwritten and says: “You show your socialistic stupidity you (expletive deleted) loving Democrap! I better not c you showing your childish, ignorant signs again.”
McGinty, who also found a threatening letter at his front door in January, said he won’t be deterred from continuing to show his support for Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden – while also sharing his distaste for Trump and everything he stands for.
“That just fires me up,” he said. “I’m a stubborn Irishman and you don’t tell me you’re threatening me. All that does is get my Irish up.”
McGinty said he and several friends are continuing to pick out spots in The Villages on a daily basis to share his message. He said he decided he needed someone with him after a recent episode when he claimed another Villager rammed his golf cart that’s always laden with anti-Trump signs.
“It’s just better to have a witness to tell the truth,” he said. “A guy there who’s a Republican told the cop the other guy never ran into the front of my cart. But I have a camera in the front of my cart and I have the picture of him banging into the front of my cart.”
McGinty said many Trump supporters in The Villages would probably be surprised to see how many residents are supporting his cause.
“When we’re sitting here, we get 50-50 – 50 thumbs up and 50 middle fingers,” he said. “I’m not going to convert any Republicans, but I am going to show the Democrats that they’re not alone.”
McGinty said he also has a theory about those who are still backing the president.
“I think anybody that still supports Donald Trump, after seeing what he’s done for the last three years, has got to be a racist, a bigot, very selfish or stupid,” he said. “So all of these friends of mine that are still backing Trump, they’re one of those four things. I don’t mind discussing it with them, because I guarantee if I can press them down in a verbal conversation, they’re eventually going to admit that they’re one of those four things.”
McGinty also vowed to continue to share his message until the Nov. 3 election and then retire.
“I really think Biden is really going to crush him,” he said. “I don’t think he’s going to win. I think he’s going to crush him.”
McGinty gained national attention after the story of his first threatening letter appeared in January on Villages-News.com and then was picked up by other news sources.
But he gained worldwide notoriety a few days later after Villager Marsha Hill confronted him while he was parked in his golf cart in the grassy area at Odell Circle displaying signs that read: “Trump Is A Sexual Predator,” “Trump Filthy Pig,” “Trump Compulsive Liar,” “Trump Bigot and Racist” and “Hitler And Trump Exactly Same DNA.”
The two got into an argument as Hill, who lives in the Village of Amelia, filmed the incident on her cell phone and later posted it on Twitter.
“He called me a pig!” Hill screamed as two Sumter County sheriff’s deputies arrived to speak with McGinty. “He called me a pig for no reason because I asked him why he thought the president was a sexual predator.”
Of McGinty’s signs, Hill said: “That’s blasphemy. You don’t say that about the president of the United States.”
McGinty was interviewed by a CNN crew in March shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and at the time said it would never have happened if Hill hadn’t posted her video.
“That woman did me a real big favor,” he said. “I never thought about it when she did it.”
