THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2026
The speed of our failing discourse: "Back out of all this now too much for us?"
Isn't it true that we the people are now caught in such a place? With that impression in mind, we restate this week's basic question—the question which should be torturing Americans' dreams:
Under current circumstances, do we the people have what it takes to create a more perfect Union? I Even to attempt to do so?
Indeed, are we the people living in any sort of Union at this point in time?
Are we the people built for the task of finding our way "back out of all this now too much for us?" We'd say the answer tilts toward no. Consider the past five days:
Last Saturday night, at the Washington Hilton, the national discourse suddenly changed. A 31-year-old Californian staged an attempt at an assassination attempt. We were surprised by the (unhelpful?) way Bret Stephens described this man in his recent New York Times column:
The Banality of Evil, Again
President Trump erupted in anger at the CBS journalist Norah O’Donnell after she read him excerpts from what is said to be a manifesto written by Cole Tomas Allen, the man charged with trying to kill Trump at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Some conservatives seem to think no good can be served from reading these words, but that’s a mistake: It’s always useful to be reminded, again, of the banality of evil.
The distinguishing feature of the manifesto is its insipidity. “I am a citizen of the United States,” Allen writes. “What my representatives do reflects on me.” Later, he justifies the possibility that he might harm the people in the ballroom “on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist and traitor, and are thus complicit,” although he adds that “I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”
The manifesto lays out five objections to what he is about to attempt—starting with “As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek”—followed by his brief rebuttals. The impression is less of a person struggling with an anguished conscience than of someone not bright enough to come up with objections that would force anything but glib self-justification.
It's true! Allen did create a type of "manifesto." It offers nothing like a convincing justification for the enormity of the act he haplessly attempted to attempt.
To Stephens, Allen isn't especially bright. He's glib, insipid, banal, evil—and, without any doubt, a person can see it this way.
A person can see it that way. Or does Allen more closely resemble the portrait painted in the passage below?
Headline included, we show you what a Dartmouth professor said about people like Allen in an interview with Sabrina Tavernise of that same New York Times:
Is the U.S. in a Politically Violent Age? What the Data and History Say
A question that seems to be on everyone’s mind after the third assassination attempt on President Trump on Saturday is whether the country has entered into a new, dangerous phase of political violence, and what that would mean for the country.
I talked with Sean Westwood, a professor of government at Dartmouth College and fellow at the Hoover Institution who tracks acts of violence and the reaction to them. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
[...]
WESTWOOD: The individuals who commit these acts are lone wolves. Largely mentally ill, largely male, largely younger. The thing that seems to connect them is not ideology—it’s anger. Most do not leave a manifesto. We’re left to reconstruct it from their internet history, from their social media, from text messages with friends.
A really good example is Thomas Crooks, the first one to try to assassinate President Trump. He was searching for candidates on both sides of the aisle. He just seemed to be lashing out against society. So in that way, Cole Tomas Allen is a bit of an outlier because he did provide a clear explanation for his actions.
What should we think about Cole Allen? Is he "banal, insipid, not especially bright?" Or might he instead be viewed as being "mentally ill?"
In truth, when it comes to "not especially bright," we all tend to fit that description, at least on certain occasions.
As we've noted in recent weeks, our American discourse features extremely limited comprehension of the basic concept of "mental illness." We're amazed to see someone as smart as Stephens offering an instant portrait of Allen without seeming to imagine the possibility that he may be "mentally ill."
(The alleged January 6 pipe bomber, Brian Cole Jr., is said to be severely autistic. Reportedly, he was influenced by President Trump's rhetoric about the 2020 election being stolen when he staged his own failed attempt at a violent act.)
With respect to the branch of medical science concerned with "mental illness," we apply its concepts in certain situations, run from it in others. As a people, "we the people" aren't especially bright when it comes to that sprawling branch of modern medical science, as we may even see when Stephens says this about the sitting president, then say nothing more:
[Later in Stephens' column]
The degree to which facts have become hard to disentangle from conspiracy theories is one of the depressing hallmarks of the age. So is the relentless hyperbole about the president’s alleged destruction of democracy. But conservatives should be wary of pointing fingers here. Who is it, after all, who tried to delegitimize not one but two Democratic presidents, the first through preposterous claims about a fake birth certificate, the second through outrageous falsehoods about a stolen election?
Tomorrow, we'll turn to our society's "depressing" conspiracy theories. As for the sitting president, has spent more than five years advancing the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Before that, he spent five years insulting the American project by claiming that Barack Obama had been born in Kenya.
Millions of people in our flailing nation still believe those claims. We'll take a guess:
Cole Allen was, in fact, bright enough to know that those endless claims are false. But being some form of "mentally ill," he took a train across the country and tried to settle the matter right there.
Allen's attempt at an assassination attempt was instant major news. It quickly replaced the war in Iran (remember that?) in the forefront of American discourse.
In that sense, it came at a propitious time for supporters of the sitting president. On the Fox News Channel, Allen's attempt seemed to be seized upon as a way to push Iran out of the discourse.
The channel's army of messengers also seized upon a joke by Jimmy Kimmel from last Thursday night. They have seized upon 1) the latest indictment of James Comey and 2) an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center as topics which—or so the channel's flock of birds say—show that the American project is deeply endangered by what "the Democrat [sic] Party" and its handmaidens have persistently done.
Yesterday, along came the Supreme Court decision about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Hopelessly complicated attempts at explanation have crowded Blue America's major news orgs in the wake of that decision.
The topic is almost surely too complex to be explained by American journalists, none more so than the overmatched people we saw yesterday on our own Blue American cable news channels.
(Concepts were too hard to explain. Some thumbs did get placed on some scales.)
Long ago and far away—we take you back to March 2000—Mickey Kaus wrote a series of columns in Slate about the astonishing speed of the evolving public discourse, under then-current arrangements. Here's something Kaus said at the time:
The news cycle is much faster these days, thanks to 24-hour cable, the Web, a metastasized pundit caste constantly searching for new angles, etc. As a result, politics is able to move much faster, too, as our democracy learns to process more information in a shorter period and to process it comfortably at this faster pace.
Part of that was true! Even way back then, the news cycle was already much faster, thanks to 24-hour cable news and thanks to the very early rise of the Web.
The cycle was already much faster! By now, though, the "current circumstances" to which we've referred include some monsters of discourse as thes
Fruits of democratization:
Totally partisan, round-the-clock talk radio
Totally partisan "cable news" channels
Totally partisan Web sites
Podcasts run by every manner of "influencer." A podcast culture within which, for better or worse, it's "Every flyweight a king."
The Fox News Channel floods its air with "wrestlers" and comedians. Blue America's major orgs refuse to report or discuss what happens on the Fox News Channel—and our own absurd behaviors have contributed to the general meltdown.
Are we the people built for the task of handling this conceptual chaos? Are we built for the task of creating a more perfect Union—of creating any Union at all—in the face of this non-stop American Babel?
Are we the people built for that task? At 7 o'clock on Sunday morning, C-Span's Washington Journal opened its phone lines to us the people, and the calls which came in about the previous night's events helped show the challenge we're facing.
What did we the people think Cole Allen's assassination attempt? C-Span viewers shared their ideas—and n our view, on conclusion was quickly apparent:
We the people need the guidance of wise, intelligent gatekeepers. We're people badly needing people, as people always have been.
Whatever became of the war with Iran? On Fox, it was sent away.
The claims and topics and talking points come amazingly thick and fast at this point. Most of these claims are hapless, inane. At this very late date, is anyone among us the people really sufficiently "bright?"
Tomorrow: We promise! What we the people said!
