Cole Tomas Allen and the nature of evil

In thinking about Cole Tomas Allen, the man charged with attempting to assassinate the president at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, I keep coming back to historian Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil.”

Arendt, who covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, expected the chief architect of the Holocaust to be a monster with blood dripping from his fangs. That he was a monster is undeniable, but in many ways, he was rather ordinary, even bland.

Some are surprised by Mr. Allen’s vanilla ice cream plainness. The man who described himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” is well-educated, with degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science. He has no documented history of mental illness.

Those who knew him professionally said he seemed like a nice guy.

Evil and education have no connection. In Germany, the less educated, such as farm workers, were the least likely to join the Nazi Party, while the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units that preceded the death camps, were often composed of professionals, including lawyers, accountants and teachers.

Mr. Cole’s manifesto is extreme, but no more so than the rhetoric of many in the Democratic Party’s leadership and mainstream media. He referred to President Trump as a “pedophile, rapist and traitor,” which, come to think of it, sounds like many of the “undocumented” aliens his predecessor allowed to enter the country illegally.

Was Mr. Cole brainwashed? If he was, then he brainwashed himself.

The Friendly Federal Assassin chose to believe certain things: that Mr. Trump and members of his Cabinet had the blood of innocents on their hands, such as “fishermen” (in reality, Venezuelan drug smugglers), and were plotting to destroy democracy.

In every generation, political killers have chosen to believe certain things that allowed them to rationalize their evil. The Jacobins, who presided over the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, believed aristocrats were conspiring with foreign monarchs to overthrow the republic, so the guillotine was an instrument of national survival.

The Bolsheviks justified their liquidation of the kulaks (relatively prosperous peasant farmers) as counterrevolutionaries. The Nazis claimed that Jews were plotting to destroy Germany and rule the world and that mass murder was the only way to stop them.

Mao Zedong believed that for communism to succeed in China, certain classes had to be eliminated, including intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution.

Once upon a time, society believed in sin – that the human heart could be corrupted in ways that led to acts of depravity. Sometime in the 20th century, psychology replaced theology.

It didn’t work.

Humanity hasn’t gotten better in the era of psychoanalysis, group therapy and “I’m OK – You’re OK.” Even with all the bloodshed of past religious wars, the 20th century showed mass murder motivated by ideology unparalleled in the course of history.

Rather than improving the human condition, by leaving God out of the equation, the modern era has shown a proliferation of evil: genocide, gulags and supersonic jihad. As we have moved away from biblical morality, we have gotten ever closer to the abyss.

Western religion teaches humility. Cole Allen’s manifesto and conduct reek of monumental arrogance. Because he believed the president and the president’s Cabinet to be guilty of certain crimes, he took it upon himself to be judge, jury and executioner.

Christianity says the sword of justice is in the hand of the state, not your hand. The attack on the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner reflects a nihilism increasingly in vogue.

For the left, political violence is increasingly the option of first resort. If you believe George Floyd’s death was the result of police brutality, then burn down a city. If you think the Palestinians are oppressed, then attack Jews on college campuses or drive your car into a synagogue. If you are opposed to the enforcement of our immigration laws, then assault federal agents.

The choice is simple: You can obey the laws of God or act as if you are God.

Cole Allen is symptomatic of a condition. He is part of an army of moral anarchists that includes the killers of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassin who shot President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and killed Corey Comperatore, and the millions who applaud their foul deeds.

Call it what it is. It isn’t political activism or mental illness. It’s evil, pure and simple – a sickness of the soul.

This column was first published at the Washington Times.