It Could Have Been Worse Saturday Night ... a Lot Worse
When hate makes its way into the bloodstream of America.
The good news that came out of what happened Saturday night at the White House Correspondents Dinner is that the system worked.
The gunman, we’re told, was out to get the president and top officials of the government. He failed.
Journalists weren’t hurt, either.
A secret service agent was shot, but because he was wearing a bulletproof vest, thankfully he wasn’t badly hurt.
Law enforcement officers did their job. It obviously could have been worse. A lot worse.
The gunman — 31-year old Cole Allen from Torrance, California — graduated from Caltech in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at Caltech, he was a member of the school’s Christian fellowship.
He traveled across the country by train — first from LA to Chicago and then on to Washington. On trains, it apparently is easy to travel with weapons. Cole reportedly had a rifle, a handgun, and several knives.
Maybe something needs to be done to beef up security before we’re allowed to get on a train.
I say it could have been a lot worse. What if the attack wasn’t carried out by a lone actor but by a sophisticated, coordinated band of terrorists that, because the system failed, weren’t detected before they got to the hotel ballroom?
Present at the dinner were not only the president, but also the vice president and top cabinet officials, more than a dozen of whom were in the line of succession to the presidency.
Maybe it’s not a good idea to have the top echelons of our government in the same place at the same time.
But there’s something else that needs our attention: hateful rhetorical bombs that are all too commonplace, especially on social media where you can make a fortune spewing venom. Eventually, the sludge makes its way from social media posts and podcasts into the nation’s bloodstream.
If the president’s critics compare him to Hitler long enough and contend that he’s a racist who’s out to destroy American democracy … is it crazy to think that all of that might make its way from media platforms into the mind of a man who was once named “teacher of the month”?
A man with a gun apparently heard enough bad things about Charlie Kirk that he went to one of his rallies, took aim, and killed him.
“Kirk’s assassination followed numerous recent instances of political violence,” according to one news report. “In 2025 alone, Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot; an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s residence with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family inside; an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was shot and injured outside a detention facility in Texas; the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters was set on fire; and a shooter attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters.”
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at Georgetown University says that, “Americans are quick to excuse actions and speech that were once taboo. Luigi Mangione, charged in the killing of United HealthCare executive Brian Thompson, has become ‘a folk hero.’” Somebody made a musical about Mangione — and shows were sold out.
On college campuses, protestors fly flags of terrorist organizations. Hamas is even celebrated.
We live in hyper-polarized times. Too often we don’t simply disagree with the other side, we detest the other side. And when we see the other side as “the enemy” it’s easy to turn the enemy into a target.
A while back, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were all seen as somebody’s enemy. They were all targets.
We might be able to do something about security at train stations … and we might change protocols to insure that the top levels of government don’t congregate in the same place, making them potential targets for terrorists who want to bring down our government.
But how are we going to fix the hate that has moved from the fringes to the mainstream?
The good news from Saturday night, as I say, is that the system worked. This time. Maybe not the next time.