At 250, our imperfect union dodges another bullet
Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 30, 2026
DEAR READER: Polarized to the brink of the unthinkable, 250-year-old America would be shocked by the angry, haggard image it sees if it could look at itself in a mirror.
What could be more horrific than the assassination of our president during the anniversary year of American independence?
The suspect in the fourth attempt on President Trump’s life, a college-educated young Californian recently saluted as “Teacher of the Month,” was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38-caliber pistol and three knives when he tried to rush past the security perimeter inside the hotel hosting the White House Correspondents’ banquet last Saturday night. When he opened fire on Secret Service agents, a bulletproof vest likely saved the one he wounded.
Cole Allen, self-described in a manifesto as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” characterized himself on LinkedIn as an “Indie Game Developer” who created “a skill-based, non-violent” video game “loosely derived from a chemistry model that is itself loosely based on reality.”
“Loosely based on reality” is an apt phrase for anyone who believes violence does anything but beget more violence.
Rational Americans who oppose this president’s policies attend peaceful protest rallies, as millions have done across America. Abhorring violence, we write letters and columns advocating civility and respect for the rule of law; we support candidates who embrace democracy rather than authoritarianism. Above all, we vote.
Banana Republic thugs, drug cartels and despots like Vladimir Putin murder their rivals. We are better than that, aren’t we?
IT’S TOO SOON to say for certain what prompted the would-be assassin’s determination that murder — in a warped twist on Trump’s slogan — would either make America great again or conform to Christian tenets he seems to have interpreted as a license to kill. During college, he joined a Christian Fellowship, yet apparently learned nothing about discipleship. His father, an elder at an evangelical congregation in Torrance, California, must be devastated. Christianity Today’s website reported that Cole Allen wrote to family members moments before the Saturday night incident “and suggested his violence was an act of faith to defend the oppressed.” My heart goes out to Allen’s family and members of that congregation.
I will leave it to ministers of the gospel to express how dangerous it is to corrupt Christ’s teachings.
Some will say this latest close call is part and parcel of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The MAGA movement maintains the president’s opponents are an irrational left-wing mob incapable of grasping a divinely-inspired mission to restore his version of sanity to America. The flip side of TDS is the blind allegiance of Trump supporters to breathtaking transgressions of small-d democratic norms, notably the big lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
TO HIS CREDIT, President Trump was “unusually conciliatory,” as one correspondent put it, after the third attempt on his life in less than two years. Acknowledging that his personal politics are divisive, he called for unity and bipartisan healing in an increasingly violent world where “no country is immune.”
With typical humility, the president compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, saying, “The people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after. They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much.”
Then, appearing genuinely contemplative, the president called for Americans to stop screaming at one another from their foxholes: “In light of this evening’s events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully. …
“We had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives” at the Correspondents’ banquet, he said, “and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I was very, very impressed by that.” Trump said he saw “generally hostile” Democrats who “were waving to me. Politicians, congressmen, senators. They were saying, ‘Great going’ and ‘Hello!’ The place was just coming together. It was very nice to see.”
The president went on to say he had originally planned to castigate his enemies in the “mainstream” media. “I was gonna really rip it last night.” But immediately after the incident, when there was some thought the event might continue, Trump said he wanted to change course and deliver remarks that were “gonna be much different. It’ll be a speech of love.”
That was reminiscent of what Trump said in 2024 after he dodged death by a few millimeters during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the assassin’s bullet nicking his right ear. “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” Trump said then. “We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.”
Love fell apart again Monday morning. No “Kumbaya” from Karoline Leavitt, one of the shrillest, most partisan White House press secretaries of the past hundred years. She blamed “the left-wing cult of hatred” for the assassination attempt.
Of course. After all, the latest lunatic of the month had donated $25 to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
We rise together. Or we fall apart. Which will it be?
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
