Report: Alleged Sign Stealing Just the Tip of the Iceberg For TDS-Suffering NC State Prof

Without fail, every election season sees its fair share of campaign sign theft and vandalism, whether it's signs being defaced/destroyed or stolen and trashed. 2024 has been no exception to that rule, with reports about sign shenanigans here in North Carolina alone being a near-weekly occurrence.

In one example, there was Lowell Simon, the Democrat nominee for state House District 78 and Moore County Democrat Party chair who recently resigned from his post after he was caught taking down signs for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee in the gubernatorial race.

Though Simon apologized after being arrested and charged, he said he did it because Republican signs were allegedly "illegally placed" close to signs for Democrat candidates, and that he had every intention of returning them to the local GOP office.

Another case that has attracted attention involves some alleged sign theft in the Democrat hotbed of Wake County.

According to a report from independent journalist Stephen Horn at "This Week in the Triangle," a man and someone who appeared to be an Asian-American woman was seen removing Trump signs at an intersection near a senior center early voting location. One person who we're told is either a former or current student and who saw the video claims the man is NC State Professor David Ambaras, whose area of focus according to his university profile is in Japanese history.

Per Horn, another man seen in the video trying to stop what was happening was later shown a picture of Ambaras and said he was "99 percent sure" it was the same person:

According to the passerby captured confronting the pair (who will be referred to as "Joe" due to his desire to avoid future harassment), their excuse for removing the pro-Trump signs was that they were "damaged".
The video does show two of the signs held by the pair had been vandalized with black spray paint, in a manner apparently consistent with Trump signs which had previously been vandalized at the same site last week; however, the other signs held by the pair appear to be undamaged.
After being confronted, the video shows the pair setting the signs down, and placing one of the signs reading "Trump Low Taxes | Kamala High Taxes" back into the ground, only for them to pick the rest of signs back up and walk away with them.

Here's the video clip:

Horn posted more info about Ambaras on the Twitter/X machine, complete with receipts showing his extreme TDS:

David Ambaras has called Trump "fascist-in-chief" and referenced his supporters as "bad people" on social media, plus echoing calls for the "complete deplatforming" of "fascists"
Ambaras has been teaching at the university for 25+ years and was initially recognized in a viral video shared by @LibsOfTiktok by one of his current/former students
I have reached out to Ambaras by phone, but have not heard back

Whether he's the sign thief or not, this dude has some serious issues. That said, professors - like students - have a right to freedom of speech (which wouldn't, of course, include alleged sign theft) no matter how wacky the beliefs are. I just hope Ambaras believing that Trump supporters are "bad people" who should be de-platformed (if those screen grabs are a reliable indicator) isn't a belief system that is carried over into - and meted out in - the classroom.

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(EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece was edited post-publication to correct the last name of Lowell Simon in the third paragraph.)