This week on the Autocratic Despair podcast, Nick and Dr. Craig take an unusually nuanced look at Cole Allen — the 31-year-old Caltech-educated tutor from Torrance, California who charged a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 25 armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives in an attempt to assassinate President Trump and senior administration officials. Allen sent his family a manifesto minutes before the attack. His brother called police. Nobody died. The manifesto is not what you'd expect. It's organized, self-aware, and structured around a series of anticipated objections with numbered rebuttals — including a theological argument that turning the other cheek applies only when you yourself are oppressed, not when others are being harmed in your name. Allen chose buckshot over slugs to minimize collateral casualties. He spared Kash Patel by name. He apologized to his parents for lying about having a job interview. He described himself as a "Friendly Federal Assassin." Nick and Craig sit with the discomfort of a manifesto that reads less like the ravings of a madman and more like the term paper of a person who reasoned his way, step by careful step, into something monstrous. Craig provides historical context on who actually commits acts of political violence — and it turns out the profile is not the unhinged loner of popular imagination. The show then draws a Venn diagram that nobody in American media wants to draw: the overlap between the people who voted for Donald Trump and the people who have read The Turner Diaries, the 1978 white supremacist novel by neo-Nazi William Pierce that served as the blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing and whose "Day of the Rope" — a fictionalized mass lynching of journalists, politicians, and so-called race traitors — was explicitly invoked by rioters who built a gallows outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Nick and Craig ask what it means when the same book inspires both the people in power and the people trying to kill the people in power. An update on the Prairieland case: nine Americans — Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, and Benjamin Song — were convicted in March of federal terrorism charges after a July 4, 2025 protest outside an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Seven were acquitted of attempted murder but convicted of providing material support for terrorism based on the prosecution's theory that wearing black clothing constituted support. It was the first federal material support conviction against alleged antifa members in American history. This week: Judge Pittman still has not ruled on the defense motion for a new trial based on allegations of jury coercion. A second motion alleges a Brady violation — that the prosecution failed to disclose the wounded officer drew his weapon before anyone fired. Sentencing is scheduled for June 18. CONTENT WARNING: This episode also contains an extended segment in which Nick lets Dr. Craig cook on a subject near and dear to his academic heart — citation formatting. If you have strong feelings about APA versus MLA style, this segment may cause elevated heart rate, involuntary fist-clenching, or the sudden urge to email your college professors. Nick understands approximately 40% of what Craig is talking about and is visibly trying to keep up. Listener discretion is advised. Names said on this episode: Cole Allen, Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, Benjamin Song, James Talarico, Kash Patel, Mark Pittman Connect with us today!
