This column is about the relation between rhetoric and reality, with special reference to political violence and security. Everyone reading this knows that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was rudely interrupted by a crazed shooter. The marksman in question was Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old Cal Tech grad from Torrance, California. I say that he was “crazed” because, shirtless but armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives, he charged the entrance to the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC. Inside were some 2,600 people, including President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and several cabinet members. Outside were who-knows-how-many armed Secret Service agents and local police officers. Not great odds for Allen. He shot at and hit one Secret Service agent. The round was deflected by the agent’s bullet-proof vest. All the shots aimed at Allen missed, but he was tackled and subdued.
Why would someone do what Allen did? He told us in a manifesto. “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he wrote. “Administration officials… are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” Barack Obama, responding to the incident, claimed to be mystified about Allen’s motives. Less hermeneutically challenged, or perhaps it is only less mendacious, observers saw at once what Allen’s motives were. To kill President Trump and other high ranking members of his administration.
The bizarre, incendiary rhetoric deployed by Democrats and the NeverTrump sorority is unhinged
Where did Allen get the idea that Donald Trump was a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor”? Possibly from his Congressional representative Ted Lieu. Lieu said that the Jeffrey Epstein files contain “thousands and thousands” of references to President Trump, including “allegations” of Trump raping and threatening to kill children. CNN’s Norah O’Donnell, in her interview with the President a day after Allen’s assassination attempt, quoted that bit from Allen’s manifesto and asked Trump to comment. He responded with the contempt that the question deserved. But CNN – like Ted Lieu, like many, many Democrats – has reveled in describing Donald Trump as a criminal, a fascist, a dictator, a threat to “our democracy.”
On June 28, 2024, Joe Biden (or his autopen) posted on social media the statement that “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.” “Literally.” Two weeks later, at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas Crooks fired several shots at Trump, grazing his ear, seriously injuring two spectators and killing a third.
The bizarre, incendiary rhetoric deployed by Democrats and the NeverTrump sorority is unhinged. Do you suppose there is a connection between the violence of the rhetoric and the violence in reality, between the rhetorical fusillades and the literal ones?
Following the WHCD incident, Representative Jamie Raskin, a conspicuous Trump hater, professed to be puzzled about the charge that Democrats employed overheated rhetoric about the President. There are many video compilations on the internet to address Raskin’s counterfeit puzzlement. Kamala Harris, for example, described Trump as a “fascist.” Tim Walz agreed. “No one,” he said at a rally, “has ever been more dangerous to this country than Donald Trump, and he is a fascist to his core.” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) sang harmony: President Trump, she said, is “an existential threat to democracy.” How do you respond if someone is “an existential threat to democracy”? Rick Wilson, a founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, had a suggestion: “They’re still gonna have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump and that’s a fact.” Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe was at one with this sentiment. “It is not enough to simply beat Trump,” Plouffe said. “He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again.”
Naturally, in the immediate aftermath of the attempted assassination at the WHCD dinner, there were many calls by Democrats to “lower the temperature” and tone down the rhetoric. The Babylon Bee, with its unerring sense of reality, cut to the chase: “After Failed Assassination, Democrats Observe Customary 5-Minute Pause On Calling Trump ‘Hitler’.” Following the shooting, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went on Fox News to say that “Violence is never the answer.” But on the preceding Wednesday, he publicly called for “Maximum Warfare Everywhere All The Time.” He bolstered that plea with a large, scary picture of Donald Trump in the background.
Jeffries, like Chuck Schumer and many other Democrats, instantly took to his social media accounts to express gratitude to law enforcement for their quick work with the shooter. Their gratitude would have been more convincing had they not spent the past three months voting against funding the Department of Homeland Security because they believe that defunding ICE is politically popular. They are wrong about that, but the issue may soon become moot if Donald Trump follows through with the suggestion of renaming the agency “NICE” (“National Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
The larger issue here concerns the reasons behind the demonization of Donald Trump. Before he ran for President, he was celebrated by Democrats. He was one of them, literally and figuratively. But his trip down the escalator in Trump Tower was seen by Democrats as a descent into hell. Henceforth, nothing he did could be praised. A candid observer would have to conclude that Donald Trump has gone very far in his quest to “make America great again.” On practical issues like energy, the economy, and national security he has been conspicuously successful. Ditto on the more nebulous but nevertheless patent issues of national enthusiasm and morale.
But his very success is the reason the Democrats hate him. In the press conference he held about 45 minutes after the WHCD shooting, Trump acknowledged that being president was “a dangerous profession.” He had looked at assassination attempts throughout history, he said, and he noted that those who made “the biggest impact” were the likely targets. Few presidents have had a greater impact than Donald Trump. But the Democrats are right about one thing. Donald Trump really is an existential threat, not to democracy but to Democrats and the corrupt, NGO-ridden graft operation they have perfected over the last several decades. Making America great again involves exposing and shuttering that confidence game. At stake is not only the flow of money but the flow of political power. No wonder they hate him.
Which brings me to the issue of security. President Trump was full of praise for the actions of law enforcement personnel, especially the Secret Service. The chaps on scene seem to have done a good job. They did nab the culprit. I found myself raising an eyebrow, though, at the report that while Allen was targeted with several shots, all missed.
Marksmanship was not the only security problem. Allen devoted fully half of his manifesto to the laughable security arrangements at the hotel. He had checked in a day before the WHCD. What did he find? “No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event.” He went on:
I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.
The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.
Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.
Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.
I fear that Allen is correct. And his observations reminds me of the situation at Butler in July 2024. There was a lot of comment about the bumbling, vertically-challenged female Secret Service agent who stood in front of Trump after the bullets flew. There was less comment about the fact law enforcement officers and snipers were inside the building that Crooks cased for his perch. They saw him looking around. They watched as he disappeared and then returned. One of the officers took a picture of him. They watched as Crooks took out and fiddled with a range finder, disappeared a second time, and returned with a backpack. They radioed about his movements to “a command post.” Nothing was done. Crooks climbed up to his rooftop eyrie and waited for Trump to speak. He managed to get off 8 shots before a Secret Service sniper took him out. Mistakes were made.
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