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.
In your book Bias, you wrote (from memory so may not be precisely accurate): in 19??, the president of CBS came to the newsroom and announced he had good news and bad news. The good news is that the news department made a profit for the first time. The bad news is that the news room made a profit for the first time". From that point forward, newsrooms became profit centers and it is all too common now for them to make news instead of reporting it - and both left and right newsrooms are guilty. And while there are those who will disagree, IMO, it is has been the left calling those on the right - including political leaders - Hitler, Nazi, fascist, racist, etc. long before Trump came along. What's worse, is that politicians on the left have been spewing inflammatory rhetoric for a long time as well. Not that republicans are completely innocent, but show me where republicans made anything remotely like the following or where republican openly encouraged resistance to law enforcement like what we have seen in several sanctuary cities and states.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters told a crowd in California over the weekend. “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
“there will be blood in the streets” Loretta Lynch
“Who said protests have to be peaceful” Chris Cuomo
“There needs to be unrest in the streets” Ayanna Pressley
“Protesters should not let up” Kamala Harris
“I just don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, maybe there should be” Nancy Pelosi
“I want to tell you, Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch, you have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer said as the judges hear opening arguments on the case Wednesday. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Chuck Schumer. As an aside, have been at least 96 violent attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers since SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade and over 500 violent attacks against Catholic Churches since May 2020 with 356 coming after the Roe V. Wade leak.
Virginia Attorney General candidate Jay Jones said he wished he could shoot former Speaker of the Virginia House Todd Gilbert in the head, urinate on Gilbert’s grave, and that he hoped Gilbert’s children died – and there are dem politicians defending him.
“Peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” President Trump
Only one of these quotes was deemed to spark violence. There are many more examples – Kamala calling to defund police and supporting a gofundme campaign to bail out violent summer of love protesters, protesters vandalizing and setting fire to Tesla’s with virtually no dem condemning those actions – in fact, Tim Walz celebrated Tesla stock decline, protestors trying to shout down #walkaway or TPUSA rallies instead of trying to constructively engage – a tact they use routinely to shut down conservative speakers on college campuses. While there are many republicans who make disgraceful statements, it is dems with their rules for radicals who wrote the book. And show me one instance where a republican politician made statements remotely like dems quoted above.
Marketers and political experts are adept at identifying our fears and guilts, activating them, amplifying them, and preying on them in ways that motivate us at the deepest subconscious level. Numerous studies have shown that fear drives consumer and political choices far more than reason. We humans are hardwired to be constantly on the lookout for threats and taking action to eliminate them. Politicians will continue to provide voters with a steady diet things to fear and hate so they can offer themselves as the source of solutions.