Yet another would-be assassin tried to kill the President this weekend. While the others have been lone-wolf types of questionable mental stability, this one stands out.
Cole Allen just earned his master’s degree last May. He’s apparently a well-liked and respected tutor, who was awarded “Teacher of the Month” by his company in December 2024. He has a family he is close enough with that he had to give his parents a fake reason for his travel to DC, and a brother and sister to whom he sent his confession minutes before attempting his attack—and who have been cooperating with police.
I’ve seen his manifesto described by right-leaning news outlets as “sprawling” and “unhinged,” but these don’t strike me as accurate. I’ve read it myself, and it appears to be the logical moral reasoning of a man who is clearly sane. He even takes time to outline what he sees as lax security for the event, in hopes that future administrations will have better protection.
He thanks his church family for their love, and refers to himself as a Christian before explaining why he is not “turning the other cheek.” He writes that he himself has not been oppressed by this administration:
“I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.
Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
Allen apologizes to his family as well as virtually everyone he came anywhere near in his travel across the country, and is painfully aware that if he lives through the attack, his life is still over.
Tragically, although he is apparently quite sane and has sound moral reasoning for his righteous anger, he comes to the most wrong possible conclusion about what he should do. He is doubly wrong, as he describes himself as an American citizen and a Christian, and both value systems (ostensibly) abhor political violence.
I am not here today to defend Mr. Allen’s actions. I condemn them in the strongest possible terms, as should everyone. I’m here to talk about how we have reached the point where a sane, intelligent young man with his life ahead of him was willing to sacrifice himself and commit violence in order to kill the President and his administration.
At the Continental Congress in 1787, the Founders had a vociferous debate over impeachment. Benjamin Franklin pointed out that in all of history up to that point, there had been only one recourse when a chief Magistrate had “rendered himself obnoxious.” Assassination. He posited that impeachment was a preferable alternative, and the majority eventually agreed, enshrining impeachment in our Constitution as the remedy for a lawless or corrupt Executive.
The majority-conservative Supreme Court and Republican-held Congress have repeatedly refused to constrain this President, regardless of how egregious his violations of our laws and Constitution. The guardrails are not holding. The system of checks and balances is neither checking nor balancing.
Fully 55% of Americans now favor Trump’s impeachment. One in five people who voted to put him back in office in 2024 now want him impeached. We’ve heard ad nauseam from Trump’s camp that his 49.8% popular vote victory in 2024 was overwhelming, a mandate from the American people. Surely, even in Trumpian math, 55 is greater than 49.8.
Of the five largest single-day protests in US history, three of them have occurred in the past eleven months, and all three of them were protests against Donald Trump.
The majority of Americans want this President restrained. They want him impeached. They want him removed from office for his lawlessness, corruption, and unfitness. Benjamin Franklin knew 239 years ago that the default response to a leader who has “rendered himself obnoxious” is assassination. As long as Congress continues to shirk its duty and thwart the will of the people, there will be individuals like Allen who recognize that no one in power is doing anything, feel someone has to, and decide it may as well be them.
God willing, there won’t be many, and none will succeed.
As frustrating as it is, the correct course of action for Americans is the same as it has always been: clearly communicate to our representatives, and, when they continue not to listen, vote them out.
Congressional Republicans have had the power all along to restrain him. They could have put a stop to all of this long ago, but they have chosen over and over and over to do nothing. Worse: to support him.
But November is coming.
Wilderness Dispatch 