• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

An American Sickness

A decade ago, there was a perception that political violence came mostly from right-wing extremists. Now that U.S. politics have degraded further, and social media–drawn battle lines have hardened, more Americans are putting the blame on the far left.

Donald Trump
There is an American sickness these days that just wasn’t in our lungs before Trump came around. Photo: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
Peter Hamby
April 27, 2026

Join Puck to listen to this article

Given his usual instincts, Donald Trump showed an impressive degree of restraint on Saturday evening shortly after a California man named Cole Tomas Allen attempted to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with two guns and a pair of knives. “This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties, with members of the press, and in a certain way it did,” Trump said, avoiding, for the moment, his typical partisan point-scoring. “I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was, in one way, very beautiful.”