At first glance, Cole Allen, a 31-year-old suspect in a failed assassination attempt on President Trump, appears to be just another ordinary person.
He might have led a typical life in the 21st century if not for his plan to shoot Trump and members of his Cabinet at the Washington Hilton on a recent Saturday night.
As Will Ricciardella, a former Daily Caller social media director, pointed out on “X,” Allen wasn’t some outcast forgotten by the system. He holds a degree from Caltech, a highly regarded STEM institution, and also earned a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills. He even worked part-time as a teacher and tutor. You might think that someone with such qualifications would drift toward a conventional American life.
The gunman, the WHCA claimed, was not some weirdo lurking on the fringes of society and forgotten by the establishment.
He was well educated, qualified, employed and organized. That’s what makes this so disturbing.
At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a malfunction, but…
— Will Ricciardella (@WillRicci) April 26, 2026
However, Allen decided to act on his beliefs. He viewed Trump as an authoritarian threat and felt compelled to fight for the “oppressed” individuals around the globe.
In a manifesto, he reflected, “You turn the other cheek when you yourself are oppressed. I am not someone who was raped in a prison camp. I am not a fisherman who was executed without trial. I am not a bombed school child, a starving child, or a teenage girl abused by the current regime’s many criminals.”
Ricciardella suggested that Allen’s worldview was shaped by left-leaning scholars, the media environment, and the political landscape of the 21st century. This perspective is hard to dispute. Allen seems more like a product of the system than an extremist, differing from figures like Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, who lived on the fringes of society. Interestingly, both men share something in common: a lack of effort or focus in life.
Political extremism always exists, and there will always be individuals willing to resort to violence. But is it possible that modern academia, with its tendency to label leaders in inflammatory terms, is exacerbating the situation? The culture of glorifying political violence—like the admiration for United Healthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione—might be more prevalent now than it was during McKinley’s era.
Czolgosz, for example, idolized an anarchist assassin who killed a European monarch, yet lived a life that involved more taboo beliefs. Today, however, these ideologies might not be so stigmatized. Recent polls reveal that a notable number of younger individuals view political violence as justified. This trend is particularly alarming among those with higher education levels, especially in the wake of Trump’s most recent assassination attempt.
Political extremism is like an ever-raging fire. Yet, mainstream institutions such as universities and liberal media seem less inclined to quell this fire. Instead, they appear to be fueling it, whether intentionally or not, leading to increasingly troubling circumstances.
