Editors at National Review Online react to the latest high-profile incident of politically motivated violence.
An armed man charged toward the ballroom where President Trump and high-level members of his administration were attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.
After an exchange of gunfire with security, he was subdued, while Trump and others were whisked from the room by Secret Service.
The correspondents’ dinner is an entrenched Washington institution. Seeing guests have to take cover under tables, and high-level officials shield their wives as heavily armed security officers swarmed the dais, was another jarring indicator of the insanity that has gripped our national politics.
This is the third serious attempt on Donald Trump’s life. We need to learn more about the suspect, a 31-year-old man named Cole Allen, although he appears from his social media activity to be a fervent Trump hater who decided to take matters into his own hands.
American life has always had its share of fanatics who kill or try to kill politically prominent people, and Allen alone bears responsibility for his acts. Yet, the feverish opposition to Trump — who is another Hitler, according to the left, and might be the Antichrist, according to disaffected acolyte Tucker Carlson — provides a permission slip for sundry fanatics and losers to resort to political violence.
Perhaps this incident will lead the New York Times and others to conclude that the It Boy of left-winger influencers, Hasan Piker, a consistent advocate of political terrorism, isn’t as fascinating and cute as they believe. Just last week, the Times had Piker and a New Yorker writer on for a friendly conversation about the propriety of killing health-care executives and blowing up pipelines.
Meantime, what have been routine events in our politics have to be reconsidered. For decades, no one thought it was intolerably risky to have the president and top officials who constitute the presidential succession in the same ballroom together for a night of schmoozing with the press. Now, it looks like a practice to be avoided.
