I had a different essay ready to go but I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened last Saturday night, and I’ve learned that when something won’t leave you alone, that’s usually the thing you’re supposed to write about.
A man named Cole Allen, a 31-year-old teacher and engineer from Torrance, California, charged a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives, apparently targeting officials in the Trump administration. A Secret Service officer was struck by at least one round but was protected by a bulletproof vest and is expected to be okay. Nobody died, the suspect is in custody, and by every measurable standard, the security apparatus worked.
The Thought That Scares Me More Than the Shooting
But here’s the thing I keep circling back to. Within hours of the incident, people on social media (not fringe corners, but people I know, people whose judgment I generally trust) were already asking whether this was staged. T…