I’ve always been told that local media love a local angle on national news. Here’s one for you.
Cole Tomas Allen is now all but forgotten as the man who tried to shoot up the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, attended by Trump and other national leaders, last Saturday night in Washington, DC.
Despite his statements to authorities and the publishing of his manifesto, Allen’s motivations remain a complete mystery.
A few brave souls have tried to hazard a guess as to what Allen was up to. Miranda Devine wrote a column published yesterday in the New York Post under the headline,
WHCD shooting suspect Cole Allen’s toxic Blue Sky history shows China’s dangerous hold on our social media.
At one point Devine notes,
A breakdown of Cole’s most-liked accounts over the past month, before he tried to kill Trump at the Washington Hilton Saturday night, shows a classic grab bag of Trump-haters and liberal activists, with lefty Trump-deranged lawyer Will Stancil at the top, boasting 28 likes.
On Monday, the New York Times published an article under the headline,
Investigators Seeking Attacker’s Motive Comb Through an Archive of Posts
The Times reports,
Many posts circulated by the user came from people who are seen as more moderate figures. They include Will Stancil, a lawyer and activist also known for his online political punditry, and Bill Kristol, a conservative writer and fervent Trump opponent.
Christopher Rufo posted this comment on Twitter (X) Monday morning,
“Radicalized by Will Stancil” is the endpoint of modern shitlib ideology. On the surface, it presents as “normie,” the belief system of educated, NPR-listening, Subaru-driving midwits. But that is precisely the demo that has been consumed by the politics of violent fantasy.
Rufo posts the receipts.
Who is Will Stancil, you ask? Let me quote from his Wikipedia page (yes, he has one),
William Stancil is an American lawyer, activist, and researcher on housing policy. A Democrat and a liberal, Stancil is known for his presence on Twitter and Bluesky.
Stancil, age 40, lives in Minneapolis. In 2024 he ran for seat in the state House of Representatives and finished a distant second in the Democratic primary that year.
Although not particularly popular among rank-and-file Democratic voters, it would appear that Stancil has a greater following among left-wing would-be assassins.
Today, The Atlantic published a piece today (April 30) under the headline,
The Era of Normie Extremism Is Here
The relevant portion is quoted by Hot Air.
On what appears to be Allen’s Bluesky account, the posts that he has liked tend to be from run-of-the-mill liberal accounts, such as the activist Will Stancil, the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, and the satirical-news website The Onion.
The Cole Allen-Will Stancil connection has been out there for nearly a week, and reported on by several national news outlets. But not a single reporter from Minnesota legacy media has picked up on it.
Curious.
