In a weekend that has left every God-fearing, freedom-loving American reeling, President Donald J. Trump once again stared down evil and emerged unscathed by the grace of Almighty God. The attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—where a deranged gunman tried to storm security and take out the President and top administration officials—serves as yet another stark reminder of the toxic hatred poisoning our republic. The suspect, 31-year-old California teacher Cole Tomas Allen, left behind a chilling anti-Trump manifesto in which he called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and listed Trump administration officials as targets. In that same deranged document, Allen proudly declared his affiliation with a group calling itself “The Wide Awakes.”
Patriots, this is no random lunatic acting alone. This is the bitter fruit of a radical movement that has stolen and perverted one of the most inspiring names from our nation’s history. What began as a bold, patriotic youth crusade for Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party has been twisted by today’s radical left into a vehicle for chaos, division, and—tragically—political violence.
Let us set the record straight, as every Constitutionalist and lover of American history must. The original Wide Awakes burst onto the scene in March 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. A group of young working-class men—dry goods clerks, mechanics, and laborers—formed a uniformed marching club dedicated to one mission: electing Abraham Lincoln and stopping the cancerous spread of slavery. They donned distinctive capes and caps, carried torches, and paraded through the streets in massive torchlight rallies that electrified the North. By Election Day, their ranks swelled to over 500,000 strong. These were not idle protesters; they were disciplined, pro-Union, pro-Republican patriots who believed America’s promise of liberty demanded action. They defended free speech against Democratic mobs, rallied for the party of Lincoln, and helped deliver the White House to the Great Emancipator. Many later fought bravely in the Union Army to preserve our indivisible nation. Theirs was a movement rooted in traditional American values: faith in God, love of country, and an unyielding defense of freedom.
Fast-forward to 2020, and the name “Wide Awakes” was deliberately revived—not by conservatives honoring Lincoln, but by a loose network of leftist artists, cultural agitators, and progressive activists. Launched as an “open-source” project with marches down Broadway, art installations, and “civic joy” events, the modern Wide Awakes frame their mission as a choice between “chaos or community.” Their website and organizing toolkit speak of “liberation of mind, body, and spirit,” “radical complexity of diversity,” and creative activism. They urged supporters to volunteer for Stacey Abrams’ voting-rights machine, back Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and stage “joyous community gatherings” with DJs and musicians at polling sites. In practice, they became another arm of the anti-Trump resistance—protesting what they call “authoritarian” tendencies while wrapping themselves in the borrowed glory of 1860 Republicans.
The message has not merely evolved. It has been turned inside out and weaponized against everything the original Wide Awakes stood for. Lincoln’s young patriots fought to save the Union and end slavery. Today’s self-proclaimed Wide Awakes march against the very Republican Party that freed the slaves, rally for open borders and Big Government socialism, and cheer the demonization of traditional families, faith, and constitutional order. They claim nonviolence on their website—“We can emancipate ourselves without violence”—yet one of their own, Cole Allen, allegedly trained at shooting ranges, attended “No Kings” anti-Trump protests in California, and then tried to gun down the President of the United States.
Allen’s family told investigators he made “radical statements” and constantly referenced plans to “fix” what he saw as wrong with America. A Democratic donor who displayed pro-Democrat yard signs, he embodied the toxic blend of leftist ideology and personal rage that too often ends in bloodshed. This is not “awakening”—it is the radicalization of young minds fed a steady diet of anti-Trump hysteria by media, academia, and Hollywood.
Americans of faith and traditional values know the truth: Political violence has no place in our republic. We reject it whether it comes from lone wolves or organized mobs. Yet we cannot ignore the pattern. From the summer of 2020 riots to the demonization of conservatives as “threats to democracy,” the radical left has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind. While the original Wide Awakes helped elect a president who healed a divided nation through strength and moral clarity, today’s version appears content to tear it apart.
President Trump’s survival is not just political good fortune—it is divine protection for a leader fighting to restore American greatness. As Constitutionalists, pro-life patriots, and defenders of the family, we must remain wide awake to the real threats: the perversion of our history, the glorification of radical activism, and the left’s refusal to accept the will of the American people.
The Wide Awakes of 1860 marched for liberty. Their 21st-century impostors march against it. Let this weekend’s horror serve as a call to every patriot: Stand firm, pray hard, and vote like the future of the greatest nation on earth depends on it—because it does.
#TheNevadaConservative #TNVCNews #WideAwakes #TrumpAssassin
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