Nick, this is def a very thoughtful article, and I really liked the comparison to the Ford attempts. However, I would just like to point out that the 1970s attempts were weird and personal. Fromme was mad about redwoods, and Moore was a chaotic fringe figure. Allen, by contrast, wrote a whole manifesto explicitly targeting "highest to lowest" administration officials. To me, that is not 'goofy weird' but an ideologically structured violence, even if the ideology is incoherent.
The data on political violence by Nowrasteh is reassuring, but it ends in 2025. So we do not yet know if 2026 changes the trend. And the 'permission structure' argument deserves a lot more than 'both sides do it' dismissal. The left romanticized the Thompson shooter, and the right have romanticized Jan 6. This is not a symmetry. That is a race to the bottom, and u are treating it as a tie.
No disrespect, as the title of your article brings to mind the inadvertent double entendres “hand job”…as this here Roman [comma], Catholic finds the wannabe progressive hero’s slipping on a banana peel, I mean actually thinking he could get through a metal detector just like his MacPhisto Manifesto - DUMB
Nick, this is def a very thoughtful article, and I really liked the comparison to the Ford attempts. However, I would just like to point out that the 1970s attempts were weird and personal. Fromme was mad about redwoods, and Moore was a chaotic fringe figure. Allen, by contrast, wrote a whole manifesto explicitly targeting "highest to lowest" administration officials. To me, that is not 'goofy weird' but an ideologically structured violence, even if the ideology is incoherent.
The data on political violence by Nowrasteh is reassuring, but it ends in 2025. So we do not yet know if 2026 changes the trend. And the 'permission structure' argument deserves a lot more than 'both sides do it' dismissal. The left romanticized the Thompson shooter, and the right have romanticized Jan 6. This is not a symmetry. That is a race to the bottom, and u are treating it as a tie.
“Disappointing???” I didn’t think he was disappointing at all. I was disappointed he tried.
Amen
No disrespect, as the title of your article brings to mind the inadvertent double entendres “hand job”…as this here Roman [comma], Catholic finds the wannabe progressive hero’s slipping on a banana peel, I mean actually thinking he could get through a metal detector just like his MacPhisto Manifesto - DUMB
Why does “This is not a convenient time for you to do this" imply delusion?