The Attempt

I’ll say it at the outset: Cole Tomas Allen’s attempt at assassinating Trump must be condemned, for obvious reasons I’ll discuss below. But, have you seen his last e-mail explaining himself? It really is worth reading in full. The guy is very sympathetic: nobly motivated (yes—we can say that, no matter how wrongheaded he is) and to all appearances quite sane.

He starts out by apologizing to all the innocent people he may have hurt or endangered or inconvenienced by his plans. Then he explains his motives. Some excerpts:

I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes….

Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.

Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. 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.

So, Trump is an evildoer and Allen wants to rid the world of him. I certainly won’t contest the claim that Trump is an evildoer. He is not only engaged in an authoritarian subversion of American democracy; his policies have wrecked and destroyed thousands of lives of innocent people in this country, while the Musk/Trump death toll in Africa will very likely number in the hundreds of thousands. Our malignant narcissist in chief is utterly indifferent to the suffering, death and destruction he causes. So, Allen was training his sights on a genuine bad guy, a monster. What’s the problem, then?

The problem, of course, is that murder is a crime, and we must uphold the rule of law. Vigilante justice is inconsistent with the rule of law. The broader objection is that political assassination is inimical to liberal democracy, a system we all should want to preserve and strengthen; indeed, the defense and preservation of liberal democracy is a major reason for opposing Trump. These objections might seem a bit lame if we could know that killing Trump would stop the carnage in Iran; would end the terror in our cities; would restore USAID funding to millions of Africans, etc.. But we don’t and can’t know any of those things. JD Vance might well feel obliged to double down on most of the policies of his martyred predecessor.

Allen is a poor political strategist. This third assassination attempt will very likely strengthen Trump politically, as the others did. It will be used by Republicans to bloviate about the threat of violence posed by the left, excoriating Democrats and progressives for their harsh criticisms of Trump, allegedly feeding the hatred that motivated the attack. Of course, it’s Trump who constantly spews hatred, inviting it back. But, undoubtedly, some on the left will be intimidated into holding back. (They shouldn’t be: victimhood doesn’t confer virtue or mandate respect.)

Allen must have realized that his chances of actually getting Trump were slim. He must have understood that his risk of getting killed was high. As it is he will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. I don’t condone what he did, but I can’t help feeling sorry for the guy.